News & Events

Universe in the Park is a summer outreach program hosted by the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics and area state and local parks. This annual program is headed by faculty member Evan Skillman and graduate student Nico Adams.

At our events, representatives of the Institute will present a short (~20 min) outdoor public talk and slide show. Presentations cover a variety of astronomical topics such as: the history of matter, how astronomers "see," and a journey through our solar system. For our 2021 season, we will be giving these talks outdoors to ensure they are as safe as possible.

Afterwards, if weather allows, attendees have the opportunity to view the sky through multiple 8-inch reflecting telescopes, operated by the staff and provided by the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics. Additionally, we provide free star maps (e.g., www.skymaps.com) and are happy to show visitors how to use them. Throughout the evening, we encourage questions from the audience and enjoy discussing topics ranging from backyard astronomy to the latest scientific discoveries.

Through these events, we hope to convey the excitement of modern astronomical research while simultaneously providing an enjoyable introduction to amateur astronomy. Although a vehicle permit is usually required to enter the parks, the events are free to the public. Please join us!

The Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics (MIfA) invites you to join us at our free outdoor Universe in the Park events this weekend. At these events, graduate students from MIfA will give a short (~20 minute) outdoor talk about a topic in space science or astronomy. Attendees will be able to look through telescopes set up and directed by graduate students from MIfA, weather allowing. They will also give a short (~20 minute) talk about space science or astronomy.

Center for Quantum Materials, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory present a workshop featuring talks by:

Dwarf Galaxies as Time Machines

Abstract:
The smallest galaxies in our Universe encode their history 
in the age of their stars and in the distribution of their 
chemical elements, yielding some of the most precise 
observational constraints on galaxy evolution across 10 
billion years of time. Because they are also the most 
fragile of galaxies – susceptible to both powerful 
internal events like supernovae and external forces 
like the radiation field that pervades space – the 
survivability and present-day properties of dwarfs also
provide unique tests for our theories of cosmology. I 
will describe some of the measurements we can make from 
dwarf galaxies and how these measurements constrain 
our models of galaxy evolution.

Members of the School of Physics and Astronomy would like to extend their congratulations to the Class of 2021. There will be a commencement ceremony on Monday May 10th, from 7:00-8:00pm at McNamara Alumni Center. In order to keep within social distancing guidelines, in person participation is limited to the graduates themselves. Guests and well-wishers will be able to watch the ceremony online via the link above.

Please join us in celebrating our graduates and their contributions to the School!

Abstract:The Fermilab Muon g-2 Collaboration has recently released its first measurement of the positive muon magnetic anomaly with a precision of 0.46 ppm. This measurement is consistent with the previous measurement made at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where there is a 4.2 standard deviation difference between the Standard Model prediction recommended by the Muon g-2 Theory Initiative and the combined first Fermilab and final BNL measurements. This difference hints at the possibility of physics beyond the Standard Model. This talk will give an overview of the Muon g-2 Experiment and the first measurement of the muon anomaly at Fermilab.

Colloquium will be preceded by short ceremony to honor scholarship and fellowship award recipients
 

With the discovery of the long sought-after Higgs boson at CERN in July 2012, a new state of matter and a new dynamical principle have been revealed as essential building blocks of the fundamental laws of physics.  It provides a solution to the half-century-old mass conundrum, i.e., the apparent incompatibility between the mass spectrum of the elementary particles and their fundamental interactions.   I shall describe the Higgs physics precision program that will guide new physics searches at the high-energy frontier at the next runs of the LHC itself and at other future facilities. 

The Sun represents a template for much of our understanding of the workings of a "cool", active star, and its proximity allows us to observe exquisite details at its surface, with current facilities routinely reaching resolutions of few hundreds of km
on the solar disk.

Yet, many questions still linger, in particular concerning the actual mechanism(s) that create and maintain a hot outer atmosphere, as well as the solar wind. We know that a major role is played by the magnetic field, that mediates the transfer to the upper atmosphere of the abundant energy provided by surface convection. However, very little is currently known about the field itself in these upper layers, owing to the difficulty of measuring and interpreting the weak polarization signal created by its presence. Similarly, we observe a dazzling variety of small and highly dynamic features that are often invoked as responsible for providing mass and energy to the corona and the wind; yet big uncertainties exist on their physical characteristics due to the small scales involved.

In this talk I will focus on some of these open questions, and discuss how progress from upcoming observational facilities will improve our understanding of the magnetic and thermodynamic structure of the solar atmosphere. In particular, I will describe the possibilities provided by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) of the US National Science Foundation, a 4-meter facility on the island of Maui, Hawai'i, which is currently being commissioned.  With its unprecedented collecting area, suite of complementary instruments, and coronographic capabilities, DKIST will provide the highest-resolution observations of the Sun ever achieved, as well as the sensitivity to measure the
vector magnetic field in the chromosphere and in the faint corona.


(*) The DKIST is built and operated by the National Solar Observatory, a research center operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical Sciences.
 

The Theory of General Relativity (And You)

Presenters: Nico Adams, Maxwell Kuschel and Avery Wold

Right now, astronauts on the International Space Station are moving faster through time than you are. Similarly, your head is moving very slightly faster than your feet. These things are a result of the General Theory of Relativity, which states that Earth's gravity warps the space and time that we live in. In this talk, we'll discuss a few ways that general relativity is currently affecting you on Earth, and how astronomers have measured these effects in space.