Cline Observatory - 2008 Fall Astronomy Day Speaker
|
| Fall Astronomy Day Public Lecture |
Neil Gehrels, Principal Investigator for NASA's Swift Mission, will give a free public lecture about black holes at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, 17 October 2008, in the Koury Auditorium at GTCC's Jamestown Campus. The Cline Observatory will be open for observing (weather permitting) immediately after the talk.
Directions to the Koury Auditorium at GTCC's Jamestown Campus.
If you have any questions please contact Tom English - 336-334-4822 x2660
|
| |
| Black Holes: From Einstein to Gamma Ray Bursts |
Dr. Neil Gehrels
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
With amazing intuition, Einstein developed his theory of general relativity and published it in 1916. His equations predicted that space-time is warped by mass in the universe. They had an unexpected solution with a gravitational singularity from which even light could not escape - later named a "black hole" by John Wheeler. Others predicted that massive stars could, in principle, collapse to such a state. With the space age, X-ray telescopes found strong evidence that black holes really exist and are important components of the cosmos. Their birth is observed as fiery gamma-ray bursts. Still unproven are some of the more exotic predictions such as worm holes connecting distant parts of the universe and the evaporation of primordial black holes proposed by Stephen Hawking. This lecture will discuss all of the real and speculative aspects of black holes and return to the still-open question of "what is a black hole".
|
| |
| About The Speaker |
 |
Dr. Neil Gehrels is head of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He is Principal Investigator of NASA's SWIFT Observatory which was launched in November 2004. His research involves building space flight instruments to observe astronomical objects. The emphasis of his research is on explosive events in the cosmos such as gamma-ray bursts and supernovae. He received his Ph.D. in physics at Caltech in 1981 and has been an astrophysicist at Goddard since that time. He was Project Scientist for the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory during its operations from 1991 to 2000 and is a Deputy Project Scientist for the recently-launched large GLAST gamma-ray observatory. |
