This is a featured event of the BAE Systems Space Series at Chautauqua
Presented in partnership with:
Door time: 7:00
Show time: 7:30
A myriad of telescopes, both in space and on the ground, probe the evolution of the cosmos. Telescopes are time machines: the farther we look, the farther back in time we see. We observe how stars and planets form, live, and die. We watch how galaxies evolve. Remarkably, ordinary matter (atoms, molecules, etc.) makes up less than 5% of cosmic stuff. Mysterious “dark matter” makes up 25%. The remaining 70% propels the accelerating expansion of the Universe. We call it “dark energy”.
John Bally will present the latest discoveries and recent images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), and our gravitational wave, neutrino, and other observatories.
Dr. John Bally:
John Bally, originally from Hungary, emigrated to the U.S. at age 9. After earning his PhD in millimeter-wave radio astronomy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1980, he worked at AT&T Bell Labs, contributing to radio astronomy, free-space optical communication, and the establishment of the first permanent astronomical observatory in Antarctica. Since 1991, Bally has been a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, utilizing major observatories like Hubble, JWST, and ALMA. His research spans star and planetary formation, the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way, stellar feedback mechanisms, and the explosive origins of massive stars. Recently, he’s explored dark matter constraints and the concept of “cosmic natural selection.” An avid skier, Bally also operates a private observatory in Breckenridge, CO, featuring advanced telescopes for deep-sky imaging.
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