Catch a Star: How modern astronomers find exciting phenomena

Ever wonder how astrophysicists can tell when two black holes collide? Or when a star blows up? Or how the space near a black hole is curved by the gargantuan gravitational force generated by a black hole? Or what the early Universe looked like? In this lecture, we are going to cover all the most exciting detections designed by physicists to detect paradigm-shifting physical phenomena in the last century.

Dr. Tonima Tasnim Ananna is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Wayne State University. Professor Ananna joins us from Dartmouth College where she was a postdoctoral researcher. She did her graduate studies at Yale, obtaining her Ph.D. in 2019. Professor Ananna is an astronomer who applies machine learning techniques to large surveys to understand the population of supermassive black holes in the Universe and the rates at which they grow. She was featured in Science News’ 10 Scientists to Watch in 2020.

Sciences & Humanities Under the Dome is a free public lecture series supported by the Rita & Stanley Levy & Ratna & Vaman Naik Endowment. We welcome all members of the community to join us in the planetarium for these research lectures!

Light refreshments will be provided prior to the lecture. Doors open at 5:30pm.