Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC)

Much of our understanding of cosmology is anchored in observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the oldest light in our Universe. An ongoing major upgrade to the Simons Observatory will soon allow us to survey the sky faster and more sensitively, allowing us to pierce deeper into the static CMB while simultaneously capturing the transient events that make up our dynamic Universe.

The first in our 2026 lecture series kicked off with a sold out event at the College of San Mateo Planetarium

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are millions to billions of times more massive than the sun. How SMBHs work is one of the key questions in astrophysics because they test the behavior of matter in strong gravitational fields, and their growth is strongly connected to how galaxies themselves evolve. Their X-ray emission can unveil the structure of the SMBH system.