The Fastest Eye on the Sky: The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Dec 12, 2017 - 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Location

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, Panofsky Auditorium

Speaker
Aaron Roodman

What is the Universe made of?  In modern cosmology only 4% of the universe is deeply understood, while the other 96%, Dark Energy and Dark Matter, remains a mystery.   The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), currently under construction, will observe billions of galaxies, billions of stars in our own galaxy the Milky Way, as well as millions of objects closer to home in the solar system.  Every night over a ten year survey, LSST will observe much of the night sky, so that every portion of the sky will be imaged nearly a thousand times. In this talk, find out about the LSST observatory and this remarkable set of observations, and how we will be able to “see” the dark portion of our universe in unprecedented detail.