Big Bang, black holes, galaxy growth and other astrophysical events in our lives

Almost all the important events in the Universe are connected. For example, the Big Bang, the formation and growth of galaxies, the appearance of life, the growth of supermassive black holes hiding inside most galaxies, and even thermonuclear explosions of compact white dwarf stars would all be very different without each other. Thanks to extensive multimessenger observations and cutting-edge supercomputer simulations, the pieces of this grand puzzle get assembled together very nicely. In this presentation, Dr Alexey will share the story that connects the Big Bang and our lives today. We will visit the early Universe, see what black holes are doing, watch how compact stars like white dwarfs merge and explode and most importantly, learn why it all matters to us here on Earth.

About the speaker: Alexey Bobrick is a postdoctoral fellow at Technion Institute in Israel, working on astrophysics of stellar interactions. He has recently finished his PhD at Lund University in Sweden. He has, in particular, studied the mergers of giants and compact stars, stellar explosions, populations of stars in our own Galaxy, the formation of Betelgeuse that we see on the night sky (which likely was made from two stars) and even made a model of physical warp drives.