Public Lecture: Cosmic Explosions, Dark Energy and the Fate of the Universe

Mark Sullivan from the University of Southampton talks about Supernovae and Dark Energy.

In 1998, our view of the universe was turned upside down by the discovery of dark energy: a mysterious form of energy that pervades the universe and causes its expansion rate to increase. The nature of this dark energy is unknown, and attempting to understand it is one of the biggest challenges to modern physics. In this talk, I'll show how astronomers discovered dark energy using observations of distant ‘supernovae’: stars self-destructing in explosions five billion times brighter than the Sun. I’ll discuss why and how these stars explode, why they are so useful to study dark energy, and how they may help us understand the ultimate fate of the universe.

Professor Mark Sullivan graduated from Southampton (MPhys with Astronomy) and received a PhD in Astronomy from Cambridge. Following postdoctoral fellowship positions in Durham, Toronto and Oxford, Mark came back to Southampton in 2012 as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. He is now a Professor of Astrophysics in the Astronomy Group, and Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy. Mark is an observational astronomer, and his research interests include supernovae, dark energy, galaxy evolution, and applications of data science techniques to astrophysics research.

This lecture is open to Members, and to non-Members for a small fee. Please click here to reserve your place.