SFP Wednesday Seminar

The Wednesday Seminar Series is designed to introduce SFP students to the breadth of research happening at Caltech.  All seminars take place in 153 Noyes from 12:00 - 1:00 PM.  Please plan to arrive by 11:45 AM.

Richard Ellis, Steele Family Professor of Astronomy

Title: Let There Be Light: Finding the Earliest Galaxies

A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the hydrogen in deep space was ionized into its component protons and electrons.  Theorists speculate this landmark event was caused by the birth of the first galaxies.  Can powerful telescopes, probing back in cosmic history, directly witness this event?  Large telescopes have already traced the evolutionary history of galaxies back to when the Universe was 1 billion years old.  The first results from the Wide Field Infrared Camera onboard Hubble Space Telescope give us our first glimpse at primitive stellar systems at even earlier times.   Professor Ellis will address the progress and challenges of this fundamental quest for our origins, and discuss the future prospects with the next generation of giant telescopes in space and on the ground.