Orange County Astronomers - January 2013 General Meeting

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OCA General Meeting
Friday January 11th, 2013, 7:30 PM
Chapman University
Free and open to public more

Galaxy Clusters: Giants of the Universe - Producer's Cut

Galaxy Clusters: Giants of the Universe - Trailer from Brian Hart on Vimeo.

The latest version of a new documentary project, "Galaxy Clusters: Giants of the Universe," is presented. Clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the Universe. A standard measure of their size extends from 3-15 million light-years (approx 1-5 Mpc) across. The warm gas in between the galaxies of the clusters reaches temperatures of 10 million to 1 billion Kelvins. This makes it shine brightly in the X-rays, and assuming that the gas is in hydrostatic equilibrium, the gas is used as a tracer of the dark matter content of the cluster. The high-level structure of galaxy clusters was studied by Dr. Hart through using Chandra X-Ray Observatory data to investigate the structure and behavior of the Universe as a whole.

The movie follows the story of Chandra and documents the achievements by women in space and astronomy. Dr. Hart leads us out from Earth to where the galaxy clusters roam in the depths of the Universe and tells the story of dark matter, dark energy, and the quest to understand the workings of the Universe.

"Galaxy Clusters: Giants of the Universe" is rated NR by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Brian Hart

Originally from Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota, Brian Hart obtained his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the Center for Cosmology at the University of California, Irvine in 2008. Since this, he has held a position as a Federal physicist with the U.S. Army and numerous software engineering positions. In his spare time, Dr. Hart continues to devote himself toward advancing public understanding of science, partially through the movie project being presented at tonight's talk. Dr. Hart is also the Founder and Past Director of the SoCal Science Cafe organization. Dr. Hart currently works full-time with a small software company in Encinitas, California, runs his own software company as well, and resides in San Diego.

"What's Up?" in this month will be presented by Steve Condrey