PHAS Colloquia

Unveiling the Secret History of Dwarf Galaxies by Surveying their Pulsating Stars

Tuesday, 7 February 2023 from to (America/Chicago)
at Physics and Astronomy ( 234 )
Description
Unveiling the Secret History of Dwarf Galaxies by Surveying their Pulsating Stars 
As soon as we leave the city in search of a dark night sky, we are greeted by the familiar shape of the Milky Way: the multitude of stars and dark clouds in the galaxy we call home. But not all galaxies are as large as the Milky Way. Most, in fact, are small bundles of stars that lack the shape and structure of their larger brethren: we call them dwarf galaxies. Despite their diminutive size, dwarfs are crucial to understand how the larger galaxies assemble, and provide a fossil record of the universe in its earlier stages. 
A formidable tool to study dwarf galaxies are the pulsating stars they contain. These are stars that periodically change their diameter — and their brightness — as they inflate and deflate. They have intriguing properties that makes them ideal probes to study the structure, chemical composition and star formation history of the galaxies where they belong. In this Colloquium I will talk about how we use new data taken with the Hubble space telescope to study VV 124, an isolated dwarf galaxy in the outskirt of the “Local Group” of galaxies, our cosmic neighborhood. By studying the rich population of pulsating stars in VV 124 we can unveil the complex history of the multiple generations of stars that live in this enigmatic dwarf galaxy and get a better understanding of the evolution of the Local Group. 
Bio: Dr. Marengo obtained his Ph.D. from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA/ISAS) in Trieste, Italy. He was then a postdoctoral research associate and Staff Astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he worked as part of the team that built and supported the InfraRed Array Camera (IRAC) onboard NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope. In 2009 he joined the Physics and Astronomy faculty of Iowa State University, and since August 2022 he is a Physics and Astronomy Professor at Florida State University. Dr. Marengo is an observational stellar astrophysicist and studies the universe by means of its variable stars. 

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Face-to-Face colloquium. 

Location: Science 234
Date: TUESDAY, Jan. 24th 
Time: 3:30-4:30 pm
Host: Vallia Antoniou

For online attendance use the link:
https://texastech.zoom.us/j/97681948009?pwd=K1FOZzF4SHVXdHBPTmRqMCtscEZmUT09 
Meeting ID: 976 8194 8009
Passcode: 630089

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Please also visit the Department's colloquia webpage.
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/phas/News_and_Events/Colloquia/coll_spr_2023.php
Material