An Explosion of Cosmic Explosions

by Shrinivas R. Kulkarni as part of the Earnest C. Watson lecture series @ Caltech.

The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is a fully-automated, wide-field optical survey aimed at a systematic exploration of the transient sky and variable stars. So far, the PTF has found a new class of ultra-luminous supernovae, luminous red novae, and calcium-rich supernovae, and a trove of interesting and exotic stars. Shri Kulkarni will summarize the history of exploding stars from Stella Nova to novae and supernovae. During these explosions, the elements needed for life such as iron are blasted out into space. Official announcement see http://events.caltech.edu/events/event-8687.html .

Shri Kulkarni is professor of astronomy and planetary science at Caltech and director of the Caltech Optical Observatories. If you want to have a look on their toys http://www.astro.caltech.edu/research/observatories.html .

Meeting point would be 15 minutes before the talk at the entrance to the left of this round Beckman Auditorium building. They have plenty of parking space in the evening at the junction of E Del Mar Blvd and S Michigan Ave right in front of this lecture hall. http://events.caltech.edu/find.html . Parking after 5:00 pm and lecture both are free.