Events

Colloquia

 
Colloquia: The Astronomy Department has regular, weekly colloquia during the fall and spring terms by distinguished scientists and scholars covering essentially all aspects of current astronomy, astrophysics, and space sciences - observations, theory, simulations, instrumentation, and history of astronomy. 
 
The colloquia are held every Thursday afternoon 3:30-4:30 pm in person with a Zoom option. The public is welcome. To view via Zoom, please contact Monica Carpenter (mla20@cornell.edu), or Jason Jennings (jej34@cornell.edu) for the link.
 

NOTE:  

  • All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.
  • Hybrid participation: Zoom and in person (Rm 105 Space Sciences Building)
DateTopicSpeaker   
01/21/2025 (Tuesday)

“Charting the Gravitational-wave Universe at Light-year Wavelengths”

Stephen Taylor, Vanderbilt University (Radio Astronomy Faculty Candidate)   
      
01/23/2025"The Fuzzy Cores of Giant Planets"Dr. Benjamin Idini, UC Santa Cruz (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate)   
      
01/30/2025"A Closer Look at Distant Comet Activity"Dr. Theodore Kareta, Lowell Observatory (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate)   
      
02/06/2025"The Wonderful World(s) of Planetary Ices: Across the Solar System and Beyond"Dr. Jacob Buffo, Dartmouth College (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate) PLEASE NOTE: This colloquium will start at 4pm this day only.   
      
02/13/2025"Trojan Asteroids: Past, Present, and Future"Dr. Audrey Martin. University of Central Florida (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate)   
      
02/20/2025"Icy-ocean worlds thermodynamics, mineral physics , habitability and explorationDr. Baptiste Journaux - University of Washington (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate)   
      
02/27/2025"Geochemical context is necessary to interpret hydrothermal systems in planetary bodies"Dr. Bonnie Teece, NASA JPL (Planetary Astronomy Faculty Candidate)   
      
03/06/2025"The Chiral Universe"Stephon Alexander, Brown University   
      
03/13/2025"Imagining Other Worlds: How Planet-Forming Disks Can Shed Light on What is Possible"Ilse Cleeves, University of Virginia   
      
03/20/2025"Detecting biosignatures through rockey planet evolution around other stars with future missions"Sarah Rugheimer, York University   
      
03/27/2025TBAAdam Langeveld, Cornell University   
      
04/10/2025'Unraveling the physical processes that shape the smallest galaxies'Erin Kado-Fong, Yale University   
      
04/17/2025 Local speaker TBD   
      
04/24/2025"Towards Precision Astrophysics for Galaxy Formation"Viraj Pandya, Columbia University   
      
      
      
      
      
      

Planetary Lunch

The Planetary Lunch Seminar Series (PLunch) is an informal seminar series with talks that are relevant to everybody with an interest in planetary science.  Speakers include both members of the Cornell community and visitors.  Talks are aimed to appeal to and presented by faculty members, research associates, and both graduate and undergraduate students from various academic departments.  The seminars will be on every other Monday listed below at 12:15 pm in the Terzian Conference Room (Rm 622 Space Sciences Bldg).  For a Zoom link, please contact Alexia Kubas (ak2248@cornell.edu). 

NOTE: 

  • Attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty.
  • All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.
Date    
Topic
Speaker
 No lectures provided during the Spring semester. 
   
   

Astrophysics Lunch

Astrophysics Lunch is a series of informal talks on topics related to theoretical astrophysics, gravitational physics, and cosmology.  Speakers are free to present their own research or present papers that they find of particular interest.  The audience consists of faculty members, research staff, as well as graduate and undergraduate students, so talks should be at a level accessible to most. Astrophysics Lunch is open to talks from all members of the Cornell community, as well as to visiting scientists. We will reschedule a local speaker in order to accommodate visitors.

Astrophysics Lunch will be held on Wednesdays at 12:10 PM in the Terzian Conference Room (Rm 622). For a Zoom link, please contact Larry Kidder (kidder@astro.cornell.edu).

NOTE: 

  • Attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty.
  • All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.
DateTopicSpeaker
Jan 22, 2025"Standing Out from The Crowd: Finding Supermassive 
Black-hole Binaries in Gravity & Light”		Stephen Green (Vanderbilt)
Jan 29, 2025  
Feb 5, 2025  
Feb 12, 2025"Galactic Dust: Emission and Extinction"Dennis Lee (JPL)
Feb 19, 2025"Energy needed to propel a tiny spacecraft to Proxima Centauri, and, an unstated assumption in Einstein’s 1905 paper”Cyrus Umrigar (Cornell)
Feb 26, 2025  
Mar 5, 2025"Fermion Condensate Dark Matter"Stephon Alexander (Brown University)
Mar 12, 2025"Kilonovae and Numerical Relativity” David Radice (Penn State)
Mar 19, 2025"Dynamics across scales: Three Fun Instances of Dynamically-Induced Orbital Coalescence"Yubo Su (Princeton)
Mar 26, 2025TBDAnna Ho (Cornell)
Apr 2, 2025SPRING BREAK 
Apr 9, 2025  
Apr 16, 2025  
Apr 23, 2025  
Apr 30, 2025TBAMatthew Nixon (U Maryland) 
   

Galaxy and Cosmology Lunch

The Galaxy and Cosmology Lunch Series is held on the Tuesdays listed below, from 12:00pm to 1:00pm in the Terzian Conference Room (Rm 622 Space Sciences Bldg).  For a Zoom link, please contact Thomas Nikola (tn46@cornell.edu).

NOTE: 

  • Attendance is restricted to Cornell students, staff and faculty.
  • All Cornell community members should take personal responsibility and demonstrate COVID-19 etiquette.


In general, the topics are related to galactic and extragalactic astronomy, and large-scale structure. The audience consists of faculty members, research staff, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. Galaxy Lunch is open to talks from all members of the Cornell Astronomy department, as well as to visiting scientists and speakers from different disciplines/departments.

DateTopicSpeaker
Jan 21, 2025no lecture 
Jan 28, 2025"A Large Molecular Gas Reservoir in the Protocluster SPT2349−56 at z=4.3" (Zhou et al. 2025)Rodrigo Freundt
Feb 4, 2025"Rising from the ashes: evidence of old stellar populations and rejuvenation events in the very early Universe" (Witten et al. 2025)Thomas Nikola
Feb 11, 2025"Star formation efficiency and galaxy merger history at high-redshift"Thomas Nikola
Feb 18, 2025FEBRUARY BREAK 
Feb 25, 2025 "Ancient Star Formation History of the Extreme Low-mass Galaxy Leo-P" (McQuinn et al 2024) Amit Vishwas, Catie Ball
Mar 4, 2025  
Mar 11, 2025"Towards a multi-tracer neutrino mass measurement with line-intensity mapping" Abigail Crites
Mar 18, 2025 "Direct high-resolution observation of feedback and chemical enrichment in the circumgalactic medium at redshift z ∼ 2.8" (Peng et al. 2025) Amit Vishwas
Mar 25, 2025TBDSam Walker
Apr 1, 2025SPRING BREAK 
Apr 8, 2025 Jianyang (Frank) Fu (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Apr 15, 2025TBDGordon Stacey
Apr 22, 2025TBDMike Niemack
Apr 29, 2025TBDCatie Ball
May 6, 2025TBDJim Higdon

The Thomas Gold Lecture Series

On the occasion of the retirement of the world famous astrophysicist, Tommy Gold, the University established the Thomas Gold Lectureship in Astronomy to bring outstanding scientists to Cornell for brief visits. 

Former Thomas Gold Lecturers:

  • 1987-88: Peter Goldreich (Caltech)
  • 1988-89 Joseph Taylor (Princeton)
  • 1989-90 Martin Rees (University of Cambridge)
  • 1990-91 Dennis Sciama (University of Oxford)
  • 1991-92 Gordon Pettengill (MIT)
  • 1992-93 Tony Hewish (University of Cambridge)
  • 1993-94 Irwin Shapiro (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
  • 1994-95 Wallace Sargent (Caltech)
  • 1995-96 Lyman Spitzer (Princeton)
  • 1996-97 Igor Novikov (Theoretical Astrophysics Center, Copenhagen)
  • 1997-98 David Schramm (University of Chicago)
  • 1998-99 Mal Ruderman (Columbia University)
  • 1999-00 Bohdan Paczynski (Princeton)
  • 2000-01 Clifford Will (Washington University)
  • 2001-02 Frank Shu (UC Berkeley)
  • 2002-03 Vera Rubin (Carnegie Institution of Washington)
  • 2003-04 Charles Townes (UC Berkeley)
  • 2004-05 Geoff Marcy (UC Berkeley)
  • 2005-06 Roger Blandford (Stanford University)
  • 2006-07 Andrew Lyne (University of Manchester)
  • 2009-10 Don Brownlee (University of Washington)
  • 2010-11 Rashid Sunyaev (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)
  • 2011-12 Maria Zuber (MIT)
  • 2012-13 David Jewitt (UCLA)
  • 2013-14 J. Richard Bond (University of Toronto)
  • 2014-15 Reinhard Genzel (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)
  • 2015-16 Simon White (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)
  • 2016-17 Adam Burrows (Princeton)
  • 2017-18 Renu Malhotra (U. Arizona)
  • 2018-19 Bruce Draine (Princeton)
  • 2021-22  Scott Tremaine (U. Toronto)
  • 2022-23 Alessandro Morbidelli (Lagrange, Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur)
  • 2023-24:  Victoria Kaspi (McGill University)
  • 2024-25:  Lyman Page Jr. (Princeton) 

The Salpeter Lecture Series

The Salpeter Lecture Series was established in 1998 to honor Professor Edwin E. Salpeter, one of the most important astrophysicists of the 20th century. Under the auspices of the lectureship, distinguished astronomers and astrophysicists are invited to visit Cornell for one to two weeks.

Former Salpeter Lecturers:

The Yervant Terzian Lecture Series

On the occasion of Yervant Terzian's 70th birthday, the University established the Yervant Terzian Lectureship in Astronomy to bring outstanding scientists to Cornell for brief visits. The Lectureship was endowed by a generous gift from Friend of Astronomy Charles Mund, Jr.

Former Terzian Lecturers:

The William E. and Elva F. Gordon Distinguished Lectureship

William E. Gordon, then professor of electrical engineering at Cornell, proposed the construction of the Arecibo telescope in 1958 to study the Earth's ionosphere via the incoherent scatter of powerful radio waves from the individual electrons in the ionospheric plasma. He also understood that the telescope would be able to make significant contributions to planetary science and the then relatively new field of radio astronomy. Gordon raised the funding for the telescope and organized its construction. Completed in 1963, the 305m (1000ft) diameter telescope and its powerful radar systems were continuously upgraded over the intervening years and were used to made major advances in the areas of ionospheric physics, radio astronomy and planetary science. Sadly, after fifty-seven years of ground-breaking contributions to astronomy, planetary science and ionospheric physics the telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020.

The Gordon Lectures are made possible by an endowment by Tom and Betty Talpey. Tom and Betty Talpey were one of the families that moved with the Gordon's to Arecibo in the summer of 1960 to supervise the telescope's construction and build the observing instrumentation.

Former Gordon Lecturers:

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