A Deep View of the Early Universe: Extreme Makeovers and Overweight Galaxies

Galaxies are the building blocks of the Universe; massive structures that contain up to 100s of billions of stars. Galaxies in today's Universe show a striking diversity among their properties, with large variations in their appearance, age, size, weight, and stellar birth rate. Despite this diversity, galaxies can broadly be divided into two types: low-mass spiral galaxies with high stellar production rates, and massive old elliptical galaxies in which no new stars are being formed. Whereas this broad distinction was already recognized by Edwin Hubble in the 1920s, it has remained a puzzle how this dichotomy originated and how the different galaxy classes may be related to each other. In my talk I will discuss this issue and present our current view of how the different types of galaxies may have formed and have evolved over cosmic time.

Speaker: Mariska Kriek