Astronomy on Tap Corvallis: Cosmic Dust Bunnies

Join us on Monday March 16th at 7pm for a talk from Lucas Kolanz! His talk is titled:

Cosmic Dust Bunnies

We are all familiar with dust. The annoying, kind of gross stuff that clumps up into dust bunnies over time under your couch. In some ways cosmic dust is similar. It is everywhere in space, it can clump up into cosmic dust bunnies over time. On the other hand, cosmic dust also takes part in many important astrophysical processes, and can be seen way into the early universe. Yet, how dust was created in the early universe is still a mystery. We will talk about cosmic dust, where it may have came from and why we aren’t entirely sure, and why it is so important.

About Lucas

Lucas Kolanz is a PhD. candidate studying cosmic dust at OSU. Prior to this, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a master’s degree in astrophysics at Oregon State University. His current work involves running simulations to predict the structure of cosmic dust formed in supernova.