Astrophysicist Grant Tremblay to speak about NASA’s Great Observatories, black holes April 18–19
The University of Maine will host two presentations by astrophysicist Grant Tremblay April 18 and 19.
Tremblay, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and native Maine resident, will present “Light from the Void: NASA’s Once and Future Great Observatories” April 18 as part of the Emera Astronomy Center’s Science Lecture Series.
The 7 p.m. talk will explore three decades of discovery by the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory — two of NASA’s Great Observatories. It also will offer a glimpse into plans for the future of space telescopes, including the proposed Lynx X-ray Observatory.
The Science Lecture Series takes place on the third Thursday of each month and is a partnership project with the Maine Science Festival. It features research from a variety of science disciplines from around the state and uses the digital planetarium to visualize discoveries in a new dramatic and immersive way.
Tickets, which are $6 for adults, $5 for UMaine students/veterans/senior citizens, and $4 for children under 12, are available online, by calling 581.1341, or at the Emera Astronomy Center box office.
On April 19, Tremblay will present “Galaxy-scale Fountains with Black Hole Pumps,” at 3:15 p.m. in Bennett Hall, Room 140. The Department of Physics and Astronomy colloquium is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be available starting at 3 p.m.
New microwave and optical spectroscopy observations of the brightest members of galaxy clusters reveal that a supermassive black hole can act much like a mechanical pump in a water fountain, according to Tremblay, who will discuss this in the larger context of galaxies as a whole.
Tremblay was previously a NASA Einstein Fellow at Yale University, a fellow at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and an astronomer at ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. His doctoral thesis work was conducted at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Johns Hopkins University and Rochester Institute of Technology. He is involved in the development of future NASA space missions and is a regular cast member on the Discovery and Science Channel’s award-winning documentary series “How the Universe Works” and “Space’s Deepest Secrets,” as well as the host of a forthcoming Science Channel miniseries on black holes.