Joint IAS Princeton University Astrophysics Colloquium

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...

We are living in a golden era for testing gravitational physics with precision experiments. This talk will present new results using a variety of tests with radio pulsars. These results will be placed in context of other experiments (including LIGO...

The mechanism of the explosion of massive stars remains uncertain. I willdiscuss aspects of the critical condition for explosion, the observedsupernova diversity, and the connection to gamma-ray bursts andsuper-luminous supernovae. I will focus on...

All the magnetized planets in our solar system, including Earth, produce bright emission at low radio frequencies, predominantly originating in high magnetic latitudes and powered by magnetospheric currents. It has long been speculated that similar...