How did the universe form? How will it end? [cid:15972c8d-ea91-4281-a4aa-f91409650011] [cid:a5281116-d60b-4856-89da-370ce78d0584] How can we even approach answering these questions? [cid:bbb5b0cd-9a9c-4c28-be18-accb680c87c3] Thankfully we have super cool people at Dartmouth doing super cool cosmology research SO JOIN US TO HEAR SOPHIA RUBENS '24 TALK ABOUT HER RADIO ASTRONOMY RESEARCH STUDYING A BLAZAR IN THE FAR REACHES OF THE UNIVERSE [cid:f3c298de-d5b6-44f4-9187-93c205460176] Wednesday 4/24 Wilder 104 7-8pm Accessible to people of all backgrounds!! If you do astronomy research or are taking an astro class, drop by! If you're thinking of doing astronomy research, drop by! If you know nothing about astronomy, drop by! COME LISTEN TO SOPHIA'S SUPER COOL TALK Lecture Summary: Characterizing the evolution of the universe is central to cosmology. We’d like to back up these models with data from remote parts of the universe, where the light has had to travel so long to reach us that it is over 11 billion years old. But, intervening dust and gas diminishes these signals significantly. Even “zooming in” using conventional telescopes isn’t enough. Luckily, general relativity predicts that light will be magnified when a massive object bends it. So we can actually study early-universe active galaxies which are serendipitously aligned with intervening galaxies. By studying patterns in this magnified light, we can learn about the structure and composition of the background and foreground galaxies. These results will help constrain cosmological models, useful for addressing deep questions like: “How will the universe end?” and much more. Speaker Bio: Hi! I’m Sophia, a ’24 physics major and astronomy minor. My current research builds upon my REU work last summer at MIT Haystack Observatory. I study a gravitationally lensed blazar using radio astronomy and spectroscopy. Next year, I'm going to study the cosmic dawn using radio astronomy in the McGill University physics PhD program. WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU THERE!