Mapping the Violent Inner Life of Galaxies

Over the short span of a human lifetime, galaxies appear static in the sky. But on astronomical timescales, galaxies are constantly undergoing violent internal processes that assemble and destroy giant gas structures in which new stars are born. These young stars inject enormous energy into their surroundings by shining light, driving winds from their atmospheres, and exploding in cataclysmic supernova events that release most of the chemical elements from which planets and living things are made. Guillermo Blanc will describe the violent inner life of galaxies, and how a new telescope at Carnegie Science’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile is allowing astronomers to map these processes in unprecedented ways.