Event

Café Scientifique 1-20

Andromeda's stars, along with their ancestors and descendants (e.g., molecular clouds, HII regions, supernova remnants, etc.) can help us see and understand what galaxies are made of, providing opportunities for vast advances in the foundation on which all knowledge of the Universe is based. In 2007, the Space Telescope Science Institute asked scientists to propose "awesome, but crazy" projects that the Hubble Space Telescope could undertake as it aged multi-year enterprises too massively complex to consider in Hubble's earlier years that would be just the sort of legacy the telescope ought to leave behind.

University of Minnesota astrophysicist Dr. Evan Skillman will explain how the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) fits that bill. Evan Skillman has been a Professor of Astronomy at the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics and the University of Minnesota since 1989. His research interests lie in extragalactic observational astronomy, with specialties in the chemical evolution of galaxies, structure and evolution of dwarf galaxies, HII Region abundances, star formation, cluster galaxies, and Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Dr. Skillman's research is featured in the Bell Museum's current exhibit.