Matthew Bothwell
Matthew Bothwell

Matthew Bothwell

Wed 28th Jul 2021
Time: 7:30 pm - 9:45 pm
Online Stream Available

Place: St. Francis of Assisi Church Hall

Category: Monthly Society Meetings


At our July online meeting, Matthew Bothwell will give a talk titled Monsters in the Dark.

Giant elliptical galaxies are by far the biggest and rarest galaxies in the modern Universe. But how do they form? When astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to examine the formation of galaxies, peering back billions of years, there didn?t seem to be anything big enough to produce an elliptical giant. So where did they come from?

Matt will talk about the journey of discovery that led to the discovery of a whole new species of galaxy: the monsters in the dark. This lecture will be given in person by Matthew Bothwell, Public Astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. Matt is a science communicator, who gives astronomy talks and lectures on almost any area of astronomy to a wide range of ages. When he is not doing outreach, Matt is an observational astronomer, who uses a range of state-of-the-art observing facilities to study the evolution of galaxies across cosmic time.

Live streaming trial

This meeting marks the return of our monthly in-person meetups after a long break due to Covid-19 restrictions which forced us to hold meetings online. Covid-19 precautions are still in place: members are asked to follow the instructions on the notice of the meeting which has been emailed or posted to you.

Starting this month, we will be trialling a live streaming session via Zoom, details of which have been emailed to all members via the TOAST list.