A week in the life of an ASTROPHYSICIST at a conference on GALACTIC BARS

have you ever wondered what an astrophysics conference is like let me show you last week I traveled to Granada in Spain for the galactic bars 2023 conference yep a conference on bars but not that type of bar sadly bars in galaxies now these long straight structures that run through the middle of some galaxies in the universe now they're not static structures of stars but instead they move through the flat disk of stars kind of like a Mexican wave in a crowd so this conference brought together astrophysicists and students from all around the world who are experts in observations of Bard galaxies or simulations of Bard galaxies there were lots of talks discussion sessions and networking over coffee with lots of ideas being generated for new research studies I gave my talk at the conference on the Wednesday morning where I presented my recently graduated PhD students latest research on bars Tobias couldn't make it sadly so I stepped is [Music] radio profile so we're looking at equivalent to pay childhood initially did as an admission feature is strongly tied to Star formation we've been working on studying how fast bars move in their galaxies and what impact that then has on the Galaxy I.E how many stars it might be forming afterwards we found that the ends of longer bars move almost as fast as the Stars at the same radius in a galaxy whereas the ends of shorter bars tend to move slower than the stars that you found at the same radius and then when we looked at how many stars each region of the Galaxy is forming the ends of the slowest longest bars have a big spike in newly formed stars now the way that we've interpreted this is that because the gas in a galaxy is moving so much faster past the end of a very slow Long Bar then you end up with kind of like a traffic jam of gas as it all tries to get funneled down that bar and where the traffic jam occurs is where you then start getting all these new stars forming where there's lots of gas now after my talk I got to chill a little bit and just enjoy the rest of the conference including a really fun wine tasting networking event that the conference organizers sorted for us at a Vineyard out in the countryside outside of Granada there's always great conversation over Wine and Tapas and you never know what new scientific ideas it could have come from this evening it's not all glorious Vineyards though this is what the majority of my time at the conference look like listening to people's talks and just trying to take down as many notes as possible trying to take in all this new information and then note down research papers that I really need to read once I'm back in the office I particularly liked the session on how bars could funnel gas from the outskirts of a galaxy down to the very center where the supermassive black hole is we've got a lot of evidence that this happens in simulations but we've still not got that concrete Smoking Gun observational evidence that this happens in real Galaxy so it was really interesting to chat with people about their current viewpoint on this problem what evidence they had necessarily from observations that this was actually happening and get some ideas for tests that I could do with my own data again when I get back into the office and then after a penultimate hard day of conferencing we were treated to a fabulous conference dinner up on the hill overlooking the city and the Alhambra at Sunset it was just an incredible experience where we were also treated to some traditional flamenco like another they were honestly so talented now my poor colleague Brooke Simmons got the graveyard shift as her talk was scheduled the first thing in the morning after the conference dinner when I think most of us were all slightly groggy but she woke us all up by starting a friendly argument on what people classify as a distant Galaxy when they come to thinking about barred galaxies you know since JD West tea has now completely changed everyone's perspective by detecting galaxies at distances that we never thought possible but it's also allowed us to Spot bar galaxies at greater distances than ever before because we now have a big enough telescope to resolve their shape so Brook's talk was all about pinpointing when exactly these bar structures first form in galaxies in the universe's lifetime I unfortunately had to dash around lunchtime to catch my flight home which meant that I did miss some discussion and some talks about the Milky Ways bar sadly but I had to get home before Saturday because I had tickets to see Bruce Springsteen in Hyde Park in London with friends life is all about balance after all [Music] number one so I hope that gave you a good insight into what a week at an astrophysics conference is like and who knows maybe there is an aspiring astrophysicist watching this video right now and in a few years time I'll be watching them give a talk at a conference just like this

Channel: Dr. Becky

Views: 88,228

Keywords: gravity, einstein, black holes, SMBHs, merging, merger, jocelyn bell burnell, dr becky, becky smethurst, rebecca smethurst, NASA, supermassive black hole, galaxy, evolution, cosmology, bars, NGC 1300, density wave, stars, star formation, nuclear bar, weak bar, strong bar, fast bar, slow bar, kinematics, IFU, granada, spain, conference, student life, phd life, academic, research, post doc life, women in science, women in STEM, astrophysics, astronomy, space, science, physics, public speaking

Id: t8HPczb2v1E

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023