Episode 162: The End is Nowhere Near Nigh, with Fred Adams

The Star Spot

Feature Guest: Fred Adams

If you thought the far distant future of our universe was going to be bleak, dreary and dark, well, you’d be right. But remember, the universe is still just a baby and it has many new experiences ahead of it. Over the many trillions of years of its unimaginably long life, new processes will take over, new forms of galactic structure will emerge and types of stars that have never existed will come to populate the galaxy. Today we’re joined here at The Star Spot by Fred Adams, not to mourn the death of the universe, but to celebrate its remarkable potential.

The Astronomy and Space Exploration Society, a student group based at the University of Toronto, hosted its annual signature symposium event on Friday, February 15th, 2019. This year’s theme was “Boom to Bust,”with three keynote speakers covering, in turn, the birth, life and death of the cosmos. Once again The Star Spot was privileged to be on location to cover the event. And now we bring you the the conclusion of our special three episode series, featuring each fascinating speaker taking us from before the beginning into the unimaginably distant future of our universe. Current in Space

Simon generates excitement following the recent historic unmanned test flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, which shall pave the way for astronauts to once again launch into space from American soil. And it turns out we still have a lot to learn about white dwarf stars, as Amelia and Samantha bring you a tantalizing discovery: A white dwarf with an orbiting dust ring! Then we move out to the disk of the galaxy. Astronomers have had trouble measuring the mass of our galaxy, but as Tony explains, we may have finally figured it out thanks to a clever technique.

About Our Guest

Dr. Fred Adams is the Ta-You Wu Collegiate Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. His recent work includes star formation in clusters, the development of a theory for the initial mass function for forming stars, and studies of extra-solar planetary systems.