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- <b>ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM</b><br>Tracing the Cosmic Shutdown of Star Formation in Massive Galaxies
- <b>ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM</b><br>The Effects of Magnetic Field Morphology on the Determination of Oxygen and Iron Abundances in the Solar Photosphere
- <b>ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM</b><br>Star Formation Across Space
- <b>ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM</b><br>Lonely Galaxies: The Baryon Content of Isolated Dwarf Galaxies
- <b>ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM</b><br>Choose Your Own Adventure: Multiplicity of Planets Among the Smallest Stars
- <b>ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM</b><br>Why the Invisible Reservoir of Gas Around Galaxies Counts in Galaxy Evolution
- <b>ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM</b><br>A Galaxy-Scale Fountain of Cold Molecular Gas Pumped by a Black Hole
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Better Living Through Computation: Exploring the First Generations of Galaxies with Large-Scale Simulations
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>The Search for Earth 2.0
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>The Fast and Furious Lives of High Velocity Clouds
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Supernovae as Drivers of Dust Evolution in Galaxies
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>How to Measure the Composition of Planet-Forming Material
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Direct Imaging of Extrasolar Planets and the Gemini Planet Imager
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Blowing in the Quasar Wind: Feedback from Black Hole Outflows in Major Galaxy Mergers
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Magellan/MDM Colloquium: Department Members Share Their Current Work Using Magellan/MDM Observatories
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>The Fisk-Vanderbilt Masters-to-PhD Bridge Program: A Model for Increasing Diversity at the PhD Level in Physics & Astronomy
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Science, Symphony, and the Northern Lights
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Observing the Formation of Planetary Diversity
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Empirical Constraints on Theories of Planet Formation
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Black People in Astronomy: Why So Few?
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM <br> Hot on the Trail of Warm Planets Orbiting Cool Stars
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Galaxy Clusters as Cosmological and Astrophysical Probes
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM <br> Discovery of a Thorne-Zytkow Object Candidate in The Small Magellanic Cloud
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Where's the Matter? (Tales from the Milky Way's Destructive Past)
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Measuring the Mass-Radius Relation of Neutron Stars
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM <br> Accretion Disk Outbursts: MHD Simulations (Finally) Confront Reality
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM <br> The Observability of Recoiling Black Holes as Offset Quasars
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Black Hole Masses in Active Galaxies
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Using Multiwavelength Variability Studies to Probe the Disk-Jet Connection of Fermi Blazars
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>X-ray Reverberation Mapping in AGN
- 3rd Annual Astronomy Undergraduate Poster Session
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>High-Energy-Density Astrophysics in the Laboratory
- SPECIAL ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Ralph Baldwin Prize in Astrophysics and Space Sciences<br>Lonely Massive Stars</br>
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Live Fast Die Young: The Evolution of Massive Stars towards their Death</br>
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Watching a Little Gas Cloud on its Way into the Galactic Supermassive Black Hole
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Dwarf Galaxies as Cosmological Probes
- SPECIAL ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>The Magellan and MDM Observatories / Michigan Astronomy
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Seeing Worlds in Grains of Sand
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Mohler Prize Lecture<br>Lighting up the Universe: Witnessing Cosmic Dawn</br>
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>The ALFALFA Census of Gas-Bearing Galaxies at z=0</br>
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Accretion Disk Outbursts: MHD Simulations (Finally) Confront Reality
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>3D Spectroscopy of Giant H II Regions in Nearby Spiral Galaxies</br>
- ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM<br>Star Clusters and High Mass X-Ray Binaries in Nearby Spirals, Mergers, and Starburst Galaxies
- PUBLIC ASTRONOMY DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS COLLOQUIUM | Cracking the Cosmic Code
- ASTRONOMY DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS COLLOQUIUM
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- Seminars & Colloquia
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) has begun operations in the high desert of northern Chile offering unprecedented spatial resolution and sensitivity within the millimeter and sub-millimeter atmospheric windows. The study of planet birth is one of the key science areas enabled by ALMA due to the ability to resolve both gas and dust emission within the planet formation zones of young gas-rich circumstellar disks. This is highlighted by the fantastic high resolution image of HL Tau showing significant structure in the emission from pebbles within a young disk that is still accreting from its natal envelope. In this talk I will explore the related physics and chemistry of gas-rich disks and emphasize new breakthroughs in our understanding brought about by ALMA in concert with data from the Herschel Space Observatory. In particular, I will report on the physical/chemical links in terms of snow-lines and the likely formation of pebbles and possibly planetesimals. Snow-lines represent chemical transitions (ice to vapor) in the disk and have long been posited as favorable sites for planet formation. With ALMA we have now directly and indirectly resolved the carbon monoxide snow-line in several disk systems. I will present these data and show compelling new evidence that grain growth is fostered at these locations, perhaps giving rise to the fantastic structure seen in HL Tau. Furthermore the formation of ice-coated pebbles in the increasingly dust rich midplane must deplete the upper layers, and due to radial drift, the outer disk of key ices that carry C, H, O, N. We will show that there is strong evidence for missing volatiles in the disk surfaces layers of the nearest disk system (TW Hya) with an apparent radial gradient in the carbon to oxygen content in the gas and solids. This elemental abundance gradient will likely be imprinted within the atmospheres of forming gas giants and sets constraints on the location of the volatile reservoir needed to form habitable terrestrial worlds.
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