Monthly Member Meetup

Speaker Topic:

Globular clusters serve as fossil records of the Milky Way’s early formation, providing critical insight into the evolution of the Galaxy’s halo and bulge through their orbits and tidal interactions. This talk explores how globular clusters can be used to trace the Milky Way’s assembly history, particularly through the detection of tidal tails and the identification of stars stripped from these dense stellar
systems. Utilizing data from ESA’s Gaia mission, we examine the kinematics and spatial distributions of globular clusters, focusing on their motion relative to the field stars and the presence of extra-tidal structures. We highlight recent findings on NGC 6569 & 6544, demonstrating how precise astrometric measurements allow us to map cluster dynamics and identify escaping stars. Our study contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms driving cluster dissolution, the impact of tidal interactions, and the role of globular clusters in shaping the stellar populations of the Milky Way’s inner regions.

About our Speaker:

Dr. Joanne Hughes Clark is an astronomer and Associate Professor of Physics at Seattle University, as well as an Affiliate Associate Professor in the Astronomy Department at the University of Washington. She earned her Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Queen Mary, University of London, where she studied how stars form using infrared satellite data. Her research focuses on the stars in dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, as well as the structure of our Milky Way. She has led numerous projects studying how stars evolve and how galaxies change over time, with funding from NASA and the National Science Foundation.

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