La conférence Helen Sawyer Hogg a été créée en 1985 par la Société canadienne d’astronomie avec la participation de la Société royale d’astronomie du Canada (SRAC), l’Association des planétariums du Canada et l’Institut royal canadien. Depuis, cette conférence publique, supportée conjointement par le fonds de la CASCA et par la SRAC, se tient annuellement au congrès de l’une ou de l’autre des sociétés, en alternance. Elle se veut une reconnaissance des contributions soutenues et diverses de Helen Sawyer Hogg à la prise de conscience du public de l’Univers qui nous entoure. Le choix du conférencier est arrêté par un comité composé des présidents de la CASCA et de la SRAC, ainsi que du président du comité organisateur local, hôte de la rencontre (la CASCA ou la SRAC).
La conférence Helen Sawyer Hogg 2019
Sera Markoff, University of Amsterdam.
Black holes are one of the most exotic consequences of Einstein’s General Relativity, yet they are also very common, from stellar remnants up to beasts over a billion times more massive than our sun. Contrary to their reputation as cosmic vacuum cleaners, they actually serve as engines for extremely energetic processes, converting a large fraction of the ‘fuel’ they capture into other forms that can majorly impact their surroundings. For instance, some black holes launch enormous jets of relativistic plasma, bigger than their host galaxies, that accelerate particles to energies millions of times higher than the Large Hadron Collider at CERN! Astronomers, astrophysicists and physicists all want to understand black holes, yet we have been limited by the resolution of our telescopes from actually seeing one directly. This situation has changed dramatically with the Event Horizon Telescope, an Earth-sized millimeter-wavelength array that revealed to the world what a black hole actually looks like just this past April. I will put this exciting result into context by explaining more about how black holes become such efficient, gravity-powered engines, and why they are important players for many different fields of study. Along the way I will also discuss the areas where we still have major questions, and thus the challenges for the coming years.
2019 | Sera Markoff | Imaging (and Imagining) Black Holes |
2018 | Emily Lakdawalla | The Golden Age of Solar System Exploration |
2017 | Fiona Harrison | From Spinning Black Holes to Exploding Stars: A New View of the High Energy Universe |
2016 | Ann Hornschemeier | All the X-ray binaries in the Universe |
2015 | Roberto Abraham | First Results from Dragonfly |
2014 | Laura Ferrarese | The Hidden Lives of Galaxies |
2013 | Malcolm Longair | Cosmology – its tortuous history, glorious present and bright future |
2012 | Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell | Will the World End in 2012? The astronomical Evidence. |
2011 | Dimitar Sasselov | The Search for a Sister Earth |
2010 | René Doyon | First Images of Exoplanets |
2009 | Lawrence Krauss | Life, the Universe and Nothing |
2008 | Phil Plait | Bad Astronomy |
2007 | Steven Squyres | Science Results from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission |
2006 | Alan Hildebrand | Hunting for Doomsday asteroids from Earth and Space |
2005 | Michel Mayor | Des planètes gazeuses aux planètes rocheuses: Dix ans de découvertes de planètes extrasolaires |
2004 | Sara Schechner | Politics and the Dimensions of the Solar System: John Winthrop’s Observations of the Transits of Venus Expedition to St. John’s, June 1761 |
2003 | Michael Shara | Stellar Promiscuity and Destruction |
2002 | Paul Hodge | Barnard’s Galaxy: Its Mysteries Revealed |
2001 | Jill Tarter | Pulling Signals out of Noise |
2000 | Wendy Freedman | The Age and Size of the Universe |
1999 | Paul Chodas | The Impact Threat and Public Perception |
1998 | David Crampton | Exploring the Frontier of the Universe with New Eyes |
1997 | Vera Rubin | What Hubble Didn’t Know About Our Galaxy |
1996 | Werner Israel | Black Holes |
1995 | David H. Levy | Springtime on Jupiter – a personal perspective on Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 |
1994 | George Efstathiou | The Origin of Galaxies |
1993 | Margaret Geller | Mapping the Universe: So Many Galaxies, So Little Time |
1992 | Alan R. Hildebrand | The Cretaceous / Tertiary Boundary Impact (or the Dinosaurs Didn’t Have A Chance) |
1991 | Kimmo A. Innanen | The Prediction and Discovery of a New Solar System Object: The Planetary Trojan Asteroids |
1990 | Joseph Veverka | Exploration of the Solar System: Voyager and Beyond |
1989 | Roger Cayrel | La construction du téléscope CFH |
1988 | Hubert Reeves | Early Moments of the Universe |
1987 | René Racine | Small is Beautiful: The Quest for High Resolution Imaging in Astronomy |
1986 | Barry Madore | The Hubble Space Telescope |
1985 | Owen Gingerich | The Mysterious Nebulae, 1610-1924 |