IA/U.Porto Seminar - CosmoESPRESSO: First results - 23 janeiro 2019

The observational evidence for the acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of gravitation and particle physics are incomplete (and possibly incorrect) and that currently unknown physics is out there, waiting to be discovered. The next generation of astrophysical facilities must search for, identify and ultimately characterise this new physics. 

 

CosmoESPRESSO is an FCT-funded project which is pursuing these goals through the ESPRESSO spectrograph together with other ground and space facilities. In the first part of the seminar I will introduce the key goals of the project, and highlight some early results. In the second part I will present one of the project's more ambitous goals: a 3-year effort to directly involve more than one hundred high-school students, from about a dozen schools across continental Portugal, in scientific research.