The Renaissance of Astrophysics: A landscape of opportunities in the era of new observations

Astronomical transients are events that appear and disappear in the sky and are signs of catastrophic events in space, including the most extreme stellar (star) deaths and interactions between stars and supermassive black holes. Thanks to new and improved observational facilities, which use measurements of gravitational waves and light, we can now sample the night sky for astronomical transients with unprecedented resolution across the electromagnetic spectrum and beyond. This effort has led to the discovery of new types of stellar explosions, revolutionized our understanding of phenomena that we thought we already knew, and enabled the first insights into the physics of how black holes and stars interact.

Speaker

Dr. Raffaella Margutti

Dr. Raffaella Margutti

Associate Professor,
Departments of Astronomy and Physics;
Marc and Cristina Bensadoun
Professor in Physics