The Sunshine Coast branch of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada presents University of British Columbia professor Jeremy Heyl at its next meeting on Friday, May 9.
Heyl will speak about the multi-wavelength sky in his presentation, which starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre, in Sechelt.
Photons of different energies give astrophysicists new insights about star formation, supernovae explosions, neutron stars and black holes. Heyl’s research focuses on high-energy astrophysics, specifically neutron stars and black holes in our galaxy, the Milky Way.
The launch of the Chandra X-ray telescope in 1999 has opened a new vista onto the universe. Some of its most beautiful pictures and interesting discoveries have concerned neutron stars and black holes. These remnants of supernovae explosions are the most extreme objects in the universe since the Big Bang. Astrophysicists think that they provide the power behind quasars and gamma-ray bursts, the brightest objects in the recent universe.
For more details, see www.coastastronomy.ca
