Special Events
Mandel Lecture 2018
Blazars: Nature's Particle Accelerators
Date - Thursday, June 7, 2018
Doors open at 7:00pm, lecture begins at 7:30pm
Speaker - Dr. Jedidah Isler
Location - Rio Theatre
Blazars are supermassive, hyperactive black holes that are able to "spin up" streams of nearby charged particles moving at 99.9% of the speed of light. These particle streams, which we call relativistic jets, are aligned at small angles (< 5°) with respect to the Earth line of sight. Despite this ideal vantage point, much of the physics of blazar jets is still uncertain. Dr. Isler will discuss how the celestial orientation of blazars and their powerful relativistic jets are helping us understand some of Nature’s most powerful particle accelerators by sharing the most current results in the field of blazar astrophysics.
Astronomy on Tap, Santa Cruz
May 3: How Do We Know What We Know?
Professors Ruth Murray-Clay and Alexie Leauthaud and Graduate Student Researcher Alexa Villaume present “From Planets to Dark Matter: How Do We Know What We know?”
Past Lectures - 2018
March 1: Telescopes
We’ll hear from Professor Mike Bolte, as well as Postdoctoral Scholar Deno Stelter on the latest in telescope technology and developments.
April 5: Black Holes
Postdoctoral Scholar and Hubble Fellow Josiah Schwab, and Graduate Student Researcher Namrata Roy will give a joint presentation, "Black Holes!"
Astro on Tap events are free of charge and open to all ages 21+