An Astronomical Perspective on Globular Clusters and the Pale Blue Dot

Globular clusters are beautiful and ancient structures that have been providing insight into the structure of our galaxy and the evolution of stars for more than 100 years. Each of these globe-like clusters contains some hundreds of thousands of stars in constant motion, and held together by their mutual gravitational attraction. I will describe the role that binary stars play in their fascinating internal dynamics and give some examples of how binaries are revealed in clusters using space-based observatories including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Spending time focused on things that are almost incomprehensibly distant and vast gives astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts an unusual perspective on our own small planet. Astronomers for Planet Earth (A4E) was founded in 2019 to harness this perspective to mobilize the global astronomical community to take action on the climate crisis. I will briefly describe the goals and current activities of this world-wide organization of nearly 2000 astronomy educators, students, and amateurs and invite you to share your thoughts about astronomy’s impact on our view of our home planet.

Speaker: Adrienne Cool, San Francisco State University

Attend in person or online at weblink