Astronomy Colloquium

The Magellanic Stream: Probing the Baryon Cycle in the Galactic Halo

Date: Thursday, October 25th

Time: 3:25 pm - 5:00 pm

Place: 4421 Sterling Hall

Speaker: Andrew Fox, STSci

Abstract: The inflow of gas onto galaxies is a key driver of their formation and evolution.A prime local example of a gas flow is the Magellanic Stream (MS), a massive tail of material stripped out of the Magellanic Clouds and extending for almost 200 degrees across the Southern sky. The MS appears to be fragmenting and evaporating as it interacts with the hot Galactic corona, and it remains unclear how much of its neutral gas will survive to reach the Galactic disk to fuel future star formation.
I will present recent results from an ongoing observing campaign
on the MS, using UV (HST/COS) and optical (VLT/UVES) spectroscopy,
paying particular attention to the chemical and physical conditions in the gas.

Host: Bart Wakker

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