History of the Universe

3rd June 5h30 pm

Lecturers: Anton Vikaeus (cosmology and history of the Universe) and Bengt Edvardsson (evolution of stars, history of the chemical elements and galactic archaeology)

https://youtu.be/_1yNy2LfMHc

Early in the universe, the seeds for the large scale structures that we observe today were already being set. In the lecture about Universe history, we will review some of physics that led to the formation of the very first bound structures - stars, galaxies and black holes. We will find that the conditions governing their formation in the early universe may differ significantly from our local cosmological environment. Understanding the earliest epochs allows us to bridge the gap in our knowledge between the very first instances of the big bang and the first couple of hundred million years of the Universe existence.

Stars, among other things, are huge factories of chemical elements that are used eventually in the formation of planets and shaping the world in which we live. We can also explore what stars are consist of to understand their own history and look into the past of our galaxy. During the second part of the lecture, we shall discuss the following topics:

Where were we?

Star formation

Atoms and atomic nuclei

Atoms in stars

How do we know?

Spectral analysis

Choice of stars

Star formation again!

How can stars shine?

Products of stellar lives

We are all made of star dust