Bradbury Science Museum Association presents: Night with a Nerd

NEW: Free child care provided at the STEAM Lab - spaces for up to 15 children, register separately on our website.

 

The Universe is bursting with activity with hundreds of cosmic explosions occurring every second. These explosions provide astronomers a window into the universe, studying everything from the production of compact objects (neutron stars or black holes) to the synthesis of the heavy elements in the Milky Way (including iron, gold and uranium). These explosions are typically produced in extreme environments (densities exceeding nuclear densities where matter could be broken down into their constituent quarks and temperatures 10,000 times that of the core of the sun). As such, these explosions allow astrophysicists to probe fundamental physics in extreme conditions. With new survey telescopes, astronomers expect to discover over 100,000 transients per year. Despite the development of a broad range of ground- and space-based observatories, astronomers are ill-prepared to study even a small fraction of these transients.

To successfully study these objects, astronomers must work together with a broad range of expertise in fluid-dynamics, radiation transport, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and plasma physics that require coupling experimental and modeling expertise. Such efforts require a village, not the typically-funded Principal Investigator led science studies and there is a growing realization that science progress and innovation in this field requires community-led efforts. Here we will discuss how the astronomy community, working with NNSA scientists, are poised to dramatically advance our understanding of time domain astrophysics through broad community-driven research. These advances will provide a window into the Universe we live in and the physics governing it.