Cambridge Astronomical Society Speaker Evening - Galaxy retirement

The arrival of large, all-sky observing programmes made astronomers realise that not all galaxies in our Universe are actively star-forming. Instead, there exists a significant population of galaxies that are dormant and their emission is dominated by old stellar light. As much as we understand how gravity forces dense gas to collapse to form new stars, there has been a lot of debate about what physical mechanisms could prevent that process.

Is it stellar explosions? Or the internal structure of galaxies themselves? Or, maybe, black holes with masses exceeding a million of our own Suns are to blame?

In this talk Joanna Piotrowska will discuss our current understanding of galaxy evolution, focusing on processes responsible for bringing star formation to a halt. By combining results from both cosmological simulations and observations I will make the case for a few mechanisms most likely responsible for forcing galaxies into their retirement.

Join the Cambridge Astronomical Association for this free online Zoom presentation. The link to the Zoom meeting is accessible from the association’s website.