How Gravity Rules the World

Join the Australian National University (ANU) to explore the fundamental forces that keeps the universe bound together, and expands it with astronomer Dr. Ryan Ridden Harper – on Saturday, 27 November 2021 at 10.00 AM WIB.

Gravity is a fundamental force that keeps the universe glued together. At the same time, gravity is strong enough to prevent you from floating off into space from Earth, and weak enough that a young star can defeat gravity by picking up an apple from the ground.

Dark energy pushes the universe apart, or so we think. It is weird.

Get the chance to explore the extreme large-scale Universe by observing the Sun to see how massive objects like the Sun and black holes bend and warp space with a fabric spacetime table that they will construct with you during this session.

Dr. Ryan Ridden Harper is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at University of Canterbury. In the past, he's done some exciting work at Johns Hopkins University, Space Telescope Science Institute, and The Australian National University.

He works on transient objects, supernovae, and other explosive cosmic events and things. To search for these, he develops the Background Survey, which is applicable to Kepler and TESS data to perform the largest high cadence survey for transients.

Ryan often gives talks to schools across Australia and New Zealand, and appears on ABC as an expert speaker on all things astronomy. Outside of his research, Ryan enjoys teaching and science outreach, photography, bouldering, and hanging out with his dog Dr. Carina.

Register here to receive the link to the livestream online.