URIA 2005

USC Astronomer Talks to URIA Students

Monday, July 18, 2005
Room 205 Hodge Hall

Dr. Varsha Kulkarni of the University of South Carolina (USC) spoke to the URIA students and faculty at SCSU about her research on quasars as well as the graduate program in physics and astronomy at USC.

Once upon a time when galaxies were young:
Quasar Absorption Lines as Probes of Galaxy Evolution

An important goal of modern astronomy is to understand how galaxies form and evolve, and how the production of elements proceeds in young galaxies. A unique tool to investigate distant young galaxies is to study the absorption lines they produce when they intervene with the light from distant background quasars. Absorption-line spectroscopy of quasars allows us to empirically trace the progressive evolution of chemical composition of galaxies with time. Deep imaging of these objects with the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based facilities such as the Gemini-North Telescope is helping us to investigate how the morphology and structure of galaxies evolve with time. These techniques are sheding light on galaxy assembly and evolution over the past 80% of the age of the universe, and are also helping to test some predictions of the Big Bang theory.

 

---

---