UC Retiree Learning Series

October 21, 2020, 11:00 - 12:30 pm via Zoom
Dr. Gibor Basri, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy
Hosted by Belmont Village Albany
Online Registration

We live in a privileged time: when at last humans have been able to directly see other stars and planets as they are being born. Needless to say, this has enabled us to answer age-old questions about how the Sun and Earth were made. It turns out the process is beautiful! I’ll explain in very simple terms the universal star and planet formation mechanisms and events. The talk is richly illustrated with pictures from major observatories on Earth and in space that have enabled us (along with computer modeling) to learn how stars are born, and watch the whole process unfolding.

Gibor Basri received his B.S. in Physics from Stanford University (1973) and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado, Boulder (1979). He joined the faculty of the Berkeley Astronomy Department in 1982, and became a full professor in 1994. A thread that runs through all his areas of research is magnetic activity on the Sun and other stars. He was a discoverer of and early pioneer in the study of brown dwarfs, has studied star formation, and been active in the debate on “what is a planet?". Prof. Basri has extensively used telescopes at the Lick and Keck Observatories, along with space telescopes. He was a Co-Investigator on NASA's Kepler mission, which has revolutionized our knowledge about exoplanets.