AstronomyNZ

A full programme listing all the talks and their times will be available soon.

1 . Exploring Astrophysics in the Radio Renaissance
(Special Public Session – 7:30pm Saturday 7th)

Dr. Melanie Johnson-Hollit of Victoria
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences,
University of Wellington.

Across the world radio astronomers are gearing up for a plethora of new radio
telescopes which will herald a vast increase in the sensitivity and allow new and
ground-breaking research. At the end of this golden path is the billion-dollar
Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, but even before we reach the SKA
there will be much exciting new science to be done. In this talk I will present an
overview of radio astronomy and discuss plans for next generation telescopes
and what exceptional science will be produced, by way of example I will focus
on research into galaxy clusters - the largest gravitationally bound objects in the
Universe.

2 . The Power of the Sun

Murray Forbes

In the 19th century, before radioactivity and atomic theory was discovered,
debate raged among the scientists of the day about the source of the Sun's energy.
The major problem with the known energy sources is that none of them could
power the Sun for very long. In this talk I will explain what these sources are, the
problems with them and the solution that was ultimately found.

3 . The Colourful Women of Pickering’s Harem

Vicki Irons

In this talk the links of 4 women that helped revolutionise astronomy are covered.
They achieved results despite the low pay, lack of recognition and prejudice about
womens’ abilities. Fleming, Cannon, Maury and Leavitt developed the finer
points of spectroscopy and helped measure the Universe. What they did and how
is remarkable –yet they still had fun!

4 . Does Time run backwards in other Universes.

Antony Gomez

Why is the past and future so different? The microscopic laws of physics that
underlie the behaviour of the universe do not distinguish between past and future,
yet the early universe – hot, dense, homogenous – is completely different from
today’s – cool, dilute, lumpy. The arrow of time that points from past to future
plays an unmistakeable role in our everyday lives yet this dramatic asymmetry
of time of our observable universe seems to be offering us a clue to something
deeper – that the universe around us is a tiny piece of a much bigger picture