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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR
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Speaker: Luciana Bianchi (Johns Hopkins University)

Title: Learning about Star Formation from the Local Universe

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Abstract:
GALEX is a NASA small explorer mission performing imaging and spectroscopic surveys of the sky in the ultraviolet. GALEX provides unprecedented sky maps in two UV bands, comparable to the deepest existing surveys at other wavelengths, and unbiased catalogs of UV sources. I will give a brief overview of the instrument and of the available data, and present selected science results. The UV sources, classified by comparing their UV-to-IR colors to model colors, significantly increase the statistics of some classes of astrophysical objects, such as low-redshift QSOs, and provide an unprecedented census of white dwarfs in the Milky Way. A dedicated, deep survey of nearby galaxies offers a snapshot of the recent star formation across entire galaxies, shedding new light on the process of star formation and its modalities in different environments and conditions. The UV data, combined with IR and optical data, provide a complete account of the current SF, obscured and unobscured by dust, down to extremely low SFR, and suggest a wide variety of morphologies and conditions across these galaxies. The relationship UV-to-global star formation rate, calibrated from local galaxies studies, can ultimately be applied to distant galaxies from the deep fields to map the history of star formation in the universe over the redshift range z=0-2.
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