Vivienne Wild

Accessible to honours students.

Massive galaxies in the local Universe typically come in two types - spiral and forming stars, or elliptical with no active star formation. What causes this “bimodality” in the galaxy population? One possibility is that very rare collisions between spiral galaxies lead to the formation of elliptical galaxies. This talk will start with a basic introduction to extragalactic astronomy - just how big is the visible Universe? Then we will look at the role that galaxy collisions could play in defining the galaxy population that we see around us today.

Image credit: ACS Science & Engineering Team, Hubble Space Telescope, NASA

Duration: 1 hour

Host: PhySoc