Joint IAS Princeton University Astrophysics Colloquium

In past years, large and deep photometric and spectroscopic surveys have significantly advanced our understanding of galaxy growth, from the most active time in the universe (z~2) to the present day. In particular, the evolution in stellar mass...

The Milky Way is thought to be dynamically young with a fairly smooth potential dominated by a nearly spherical dark matter halo that has evolved little in the last several billion years. This talk outlines our evolving view of our home galaxy...

On August 17th, 2017, merger of binary neutron stars was observed for the first time by gravitational-wave and electromagnetic telescopes. Optical and infrared observations in particular agree broadly with the prediction by numerical relativity...

To fully understand the structure formation of the Universe is one of the holy grails of modern astrophysics. Astrophysicists survey large volumes of the Universe and employ a large ensemble of computer simulations to compare with the observed data...

From the first networks of organic reactions in the Hadean to the molecular complexity of life today, evolution encountered many hurdles, corresponding to transition points from a proto-metabolism to polymers, from polymers to networks capable of...

Most of the baryons associated with galaxy halos reside in thecircumgalactic medium. A significant fraction of the mass is attemperatures well below the halo virial temperature. What holdsthe cool CGM up? I will present new measurements of the...

NASA’s GRAIL mission to the Moon was completed in 2012 when both spacecraft were intentionally “de-orbited” (i.e. crashed) into a nearside mountainside. This orbital mission measured tiny variations in the Moon’s gravitational field by continuously...

Until recently the number of "benchmark stars" --- stars having empirically measured radii, masses, and other properties with the few-percent accuracy needed to stringently test stellar models --- was of order 10^1. These crucial stellar benchmarks...