Tyrone Woods Colloquium

Fri. Oct. 11 12:30 PM - Fri. Oct. 11 01:20 PM
Contact: Andrea Wiebe
Location: 3M69

CASTOR: Getting Ready for Canada's First Flagship Space Telescope

Here in Winnipeg and across the country, Canadian scientists are leading efforts to unravel some of the deepest mysteries of the Universe, from uncovering the birth of the first black holes to hunting for Earth-like planets in our cosmic backyard. Much of this work relies on powerful space telescopes, like the Hubble and the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope. With the Hubble Space Telescope likely nearing the end of its operations, however, there is an urgent need for a new space telescope that can observe in the optical (light that we humans can see) and in the ultraviolet, where the JWST can't see. In this talk, I'll highlight the ongoing effort to build the Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and UV Research (CASTOR), a flagship Canadian Space Telescope. CASTOR will have the extraordinary resolution of Hubble but over a field of view that is 100 times larger than Hubble's in a single glance. CASTOR will offer a uniquely powerful tool for tracing the evolution of supermassive black holes over cosmic history, rapid & deep electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational wave transients, and more, by providing humanity's foremost eye on the UV sky in the 2030's.

BIO: Dr. Tyrone Woods is an Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Manitoba. He studies the physics of some of the most energetic events and objects in the Universe, by combining theoretical models with observations across the electromagnetic spectrum. He is Science Co-lead for the CASTOR mission, a proposed flagship Canadian space telescope. Before returning to Canada, he completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich, Germany, and held research fellowships in Australia and the UK.

 

For a Zoom invitation to this event, please email: an.wiebe@uwinnipeg.ca