12-10-2012Announcement: Symposium on "Astronomy, Radio Sources and Society: The Wonderful Century"

The Leiden Observatory is organising a 4-day symposium from 10-14 June 2013 to celebrate George Miley's continued resistance against retirement. The first day is themed "Astronomy and Society" and will cover topics from the successes of big astronomy projects across the world to the role of astronomy in stimulating global capacity building. Days 2-4 will be a formal science meeting focused on extragalactic radio sources and their use as probes of galaxy and cluster formation and evolution.

Further information and a registration form can be found on the website www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/symposium. The science symposium will consist of about 50% contributed talks presenting recent results so we really encourage you to submit an abstract.


Organizing committee "Astronomy and Society": Schilizzi (Chair), Ekers, Fanaroff, Garrett, Righi-Steele, Schreier, van de Laan, Röttgering
Scientific organizing committee: Carilli, Venemans, Barthel, Best, de Breuck (Co-Chair), Heckman, Hatch, Overzier, Jarvis, Kellermann, de Bruyn, Russo, Norman, Röttgering (Co-Chair)
Local Organising Committee: Deul, Gerstel, Lub, Röttgering, Russo, Stroe (Chair), vd Veld, Williams

Programme

Venue: Leidse Schouwburg, Oude Vest 43, 2312 XS Leiden, The Netherlands

Future progress in astronomy depends on the willingness of society to fund the increasingly expensive facilities that are needed to explore new parameter space and perform research at the frontier. The first day of this symposium will focus on lessons learned from past projects in securing funding for such facilities around the world and on astronomy as an engine for stimulating global capacity building.

The final 3 days of the symposium will deal with the importance of extragalactic radio sources in astronomy and their use as probes of galaxy and cluster formation and evolution. There will be particular emphasis on multi-wavelength studies, LOFAR and potential for advances with next generation facilities.

PART 1: Astronomy and Society (June 10th, 2013)

Session 1: 1950 – 2050: The wonderful century
Cosmology: past, present and next steps (Rees)
Extragalactic radio sources and their importance for astronomy (Ekers)

Session 2: Why should society fund big science projects and big astronomy projects particular?

Session 3: Big astronomy projects: lessons learned

PART 2: An evening with George (Monday evening June 10th)

Organising committee: Barthel (chair) et al.

PART 3: RADIO SOURCES: EMPERORS OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE (June 11-13, 2013)

Session 3.1: Radio galaxies and quasars
Session 3.2: Hosts galaxies of radio sources
Session 3.3: Radio emission from clusters
Session 3.4: Radio selected protoclusters
Session 3.5: Radio Sources and Cosmology
Session 3.6: First extragalactic LOFAR results

PART 4: Parallel UNAWE events

Photographic Exhibition: Universe Awareness (opening 9 June with a small cocktail) location TBD (most probably Boerhaave)
Teacher training workshop (2 days): location TBD (most probably Boherhaave)
Children activities (9 June): location TBD (most probably Boerhaave)
Organiser: Pedro Russo

http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/symposium