On Wednesday 26th November, we’re delighted to be joined by Dr Victoria Scowcroft for a talk on Mapping the Universer with variable stars.
Reserve your seat using: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/bath-astronomers/mapping-the-universe-by-dr-victoria-scowcroft/e-jqqobl
Since the discovery of the Leavitt law over 100 years ago, astronomers have used the unique properties of variable stars to map out the universe. In this talk Victoria will discuss how observations of Cepheid and RR Lyrae variable stars are used to study the structure and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy and its neighbours. Victoria will discuss how variable stars are used as the base of the “distance ladder”, and how they fit into the current debate around the “Hubble Tension” – the disagreement between different measurements of the Universe’s expansion rate – and the implications of the tension for cosmology and beyond.
Dr Victoria Scowcroft is a senior lecturer at the Department of Physics at the University of Bath. Since gaining her MPhys Astrophysics at the University of Leeds in 2006, Victoria went on to Liverpool John Moores University to gain her PhD in Astrophysics in 2010. Between 2009 and 2016, Victoria was a postdoctoral research associate and then senior research associate at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Pasadena, CA. As the 50th Anniversary Prize Fellow, Victoria came to the University of Bath in 2016 and has built he career in the Department of Physics.
Victoria’s research interests are variable stars, local group galaxies, and wider cosmology.
The talk will take place in the Duncan room in Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI), 16-18 Queen Square, Bath.