The WCA-KPL Astronomy Talk series takes place on the last Wednesday of each month, and is jointly organized by the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics and Kitchener Public Library.
Galaxies change and evolve over hundreds of millions of years, and while we can gain clues about their evolution by looking at galaxies, this evolution is too slow to watch in real time. However, by running simulations of galaxies, astronomers can unlock this additional dimension, tracking how galaxies form and evolve through time. At this month's KPL astronomy talk, Cam Lawlor-Forsyth will discuss the combination of observations and simulations as a powerful tool in understanding galaxy evolution.
Cam Lawlor-Forsyth is a graduate student in the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on evolution of galaxies, and particularly the amount of new stars being formed in galaxies, which he does using high-resolution simulations of galaxies.