Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the End of the Universe

Most stars end their lives in brilliant explosions known as supernova.  These massive bursts briefly outshine all the light from the galaxy wherein they occur.  The past 15 years has been a "boom" period for supernovae with vast amounts of time and effort being invested in these objects.  Not only are they important for understanding the life of stars, but they can be used use as cosmological probes to study what the Universe is made of and how it is growing.  This use has shown that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion, the subject of the 2011 Nobel Prize, and is being caused by dark energy which will cause the end of the Universe.  I will show how our understanding of these objects has been revolutionized and what this means for the Universe.

Speaker: Brad Tucker, UC Berkeley