Astronomy on Tap: Supernovae and the Big Bang

The September 2016 Astro on Tap in Pasadena at Der Wolfskopff pub had an interesting start, as many of the audience members were mesmerized by the first Presidential debate. But after we decided to turn off the debates and start the session, the mood in the bar was lifted dramatically. We started off with Dr. Ragnild Lunan, a postdoc at Caltech, talking about "Spectacular Stellar Explosions" and the science of supernovae and old stars that eventually die off in spectacular explosions!

All photographs were taken by Christophe Marcade.

Our second talk was given by Dr. Andreas Faisst, a postdoc at IPAC/Caltech. Andreas talked about the early Universe, and detailed the evolution from The Big Bang all the way to the first galaxies with some amazing videos and balloon props!

We also had a lot of people participate in our astro trivia challenge. After a difficult selection, we gave away a few prizes including a NASA mug, t-shirt and exoplanet poster! All in all, it was a great positive night, despite the looming debate earlier in the night.

--Rahul