A Galactic Archaeological Road Trip with the Keck Observatory Telescopes
Prof. Evan Kirby
Guest Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Department of Physics
Research Professor, CalTech Department of Astronomy
The Keck telescopes have taken astronomers to the most remote neighborhoods of our galaxy, peppered with mini-galaxies-within-a-galaxy that are sparsely populated with just handfuls of stars. Although these galaxies used to harbor supernovae that produced most of the elements in the periodic table, those factories were shuttered long ago. Keck uncovers the history of these ghost towns–and their defunct manufacturing economies–by discovering what the few surviving stars are made of.
Part of the Our Universe Revealed lecture series