The last lecture in the 2018-19 Frontiers of Astronomy Lecture Series will feature Stephen Zepf from Michigan State University presenting “Black Holes and Globular Clusters.”
Zepf’s talk will be Thursday, April 11, from 8 to 9 p.m. at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (1 Wade Oval Dr.).
About the lecture
Black holes have long excited the imagination of both scientists and the broader public. However, black holes are not easy to find because they emit very little light of their own. Often, the best way to find a black hole is through its gravitational effect on a very nearby star. Seemingly excellent places to look for these interactions between stars and black holes are globular clusters with many stars all located very close together.
Zepf will talk about this search for black holes in globular clusters, what has been found and what this says about both black holes and globular clusters. Zepf also will discuss the idea that mergers of two black holes recently discovered through gravitational waves originate in distant globular clusters across the universe.
About the speaker
Zepf is professor and chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University and has received the University Distinguished Faculty Award, College of Natural Science Faculty Mentoring Award and Department of Physics and Astronomy Osgood Teaching Award. He is a member of the board of directors of the SOAR Telescope, has served on the National Academy Panel on the Galactic Neighborhood and co-directed the Center for the Study of Cosmic Evolution.
Zepf’s research focuses on black holes and neutron stars in globular clusters and the characteristics and origin of multiple populations in globular clusters. To study these, he and his research group use the SOAR Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Telescope extensively. For much of his career, Zepf has been interested in testing models for the formation and evolution of galaxies and their globular clusters.
About the series
The Department of Astronomy has hosted the 2018-19 Frontiers of Astronomy Lecture Series in cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Cleveland Astronomical Society, and through support of the Arthur S. Holden, Sr. Endowment.
For more information visit the Department of Astronomy website.