When: Thursday May 2nd, 5:00pm at the Simons Center Auditorium, room 103
Wine and Cheese Reception at 5:00pm, Lecture at 5:30pm
Title: “LSST: New Science Frontiers”
Speaker: Dr. Tony Tyson; LSST, Physics Department, University of California, Davis, CA
Homepage: http://www.lsst.org/lsst/lsst_cs
Download Poster
[box, type=”download”]Watch the video.[/box]
ABSTRACT: Expected to be on the sky by 2020, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope system will produce a 6-color wide-field ultra deep astronomical survey of the southern sky. Using an 8.4-meter telescope and a 3200 megapixel camera, each night LSST will obtain multiple images covering a wide swath of sky visible from its location on Cerro Pachón in northern Chile. The LSST leverages innovative technology in all subsystems. Fifteen terabytes of data will be produced nightly, and alerts issued worldwide within 60 seconds for objects that change in position or brightness.
The history of astronomy has taught us repeatedly that there are surprises whenever we view the sky in a new way. With an unprecedented combination of fast sky coverage and depth, LSST’s color movie of our universe makes it possible to attack high-priority scientific questions that are far beyond the reach of any existing or planned facility. LSST’s science will rely on the statistical precision obtainable with billions of objects, opening a new window on a universe of faint moving and distant exploding objects, as well as exploring the exciting new physics of dark energy with eight types of probes.