Plenary Talks

5) Wednesday 11am
The Herschel view of galaxies throughout cosmic time
Dust contains roughly half the heavy elements in the interstellar medium today, and is responsible for obscuring almost half of the energy emitted by stars since the Big Bang. This light is re-emitted in a region of the electromagnetic spectrum that was, until recently, relatively unexplored. The Herschel Space Observatory, launched in 2009, provided a unique opportunity to resolve this by directly tracing the total mass of dust in more than half a million galaxies. This has allowed us to survey the peak of the dust emission in galaxies both near and far, providing a census of dust in galaxies throughout cosmic time. As well as targeted surveys of nearby galaxies, blind surveys with Herschel have provided an unprecedented view of the sky at these wavelengths. In this review I will cover some of the highlights from Herschel’s many galaxy surveys including large dust discs, dust scaling relations and last, but not least, revealing dust sources in galaxies.
Haley Gomez
BS - Lecture Theatre B52 (500)