Željko Ivezić

University of Washington, Department of Astronomy

petek, 10. 10. 2008, ob 11h v F3

The formation of galaxies, such as the Milky Way, was long thought to be a steady process that created a smooth distribution of stars. Instead, recent discoveries of complex substructure in the spatial, kinematic and metallicity distributions of the Milky Way’s stars have deeply shaken this standard view. I will discuss how the unprecedentedly accurate and robust data from modern surveys, such as Sloan Digital Sky Survey, have enabled some of these discoveries, and will speculate what further progress can be expected from the upcoming next-generation surveys, such as Gaia and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.