Forty professional astronomers and astrophysicists from eight countries recently gathered in Malta for the fourth annual meeting of the Multi-wavelength Analysis of Galaxy Populations (MAGPop), a Marie Curie research training network funded under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme that has been running since December 2004 and ends in December next year.
This was the first time that a meeting of professional astronomers and astrophysicists was held in Malta. It took place thanks to the efforts of Dr Alex Gatt, a long-time amateur astronomer who co-ordinates an interest group in Malta that co-operates with MAG Pop and the University's Department of Physics. Students of the department are also members of the interest group. The Harvard Astronomy and Astrophysics Group and the Physics Department were also in instrumental in organising the conference.
MAG Pop's objectives are to obtain key physical information from the spectral energy distributions of galaxies in the local part of the universe and at high red shifts. The information is gathered from stellar masses, star formation rates and histories, metallicities, dust content and the incidence of accretion onto central super massive black holes.
It uses a wide range of multi-wavelength survey data to empirically quantify how stars in galaxies were formed, how heavy elements in galaxies were produced and how super massive black holes were assembled over the history of the universe. This knowledge will be used to construct theoretical models of how galaxies are formed. For more information visit http://magpop.elte.hu/indexNoFlash.htm. One of the meeting participants, Prof. Simon White, a world-renowned British astronomer who is currently director of the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany, Dr Gatt also arranged for Prof. White to give a public lecture and to leave his palm print at Bay Street.
He also gave a public talk at Stella Maris College, Gżira, entitled 'Out of the Big Bang: How our universe got its structure'.
In the MAG Pop network, astronomers are using a wide range of multi-wavelength survey data to empirically quantify how stars in galaxies were formed.