Bonn 2010 – scientific programme

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GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 10: Hauptvorträge Mittwoch: Astrophysik

GR 10.2: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 09:15–10:00, JUR K

Galactic Archaeology — •Eva K. Grebel — Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstr. 12-14, 69120 Heidelberg

Our Milky Way is part of a small group of galaxies, the so-called Local Group. The Local Group contains a variety of galaxies of different types, morphologies, luminosities, and masses. Owing to the proximity of these galaxies we can study them in great detail and can even resolve them into individual stars. These stars are essentially fossil witnesses of past epochs, permitting us to unravel the evolutionary history of these galaxies over billions of years doing true ``galactic archaeology''. The most frequent type of galaxy is of particular interest: Small, low-mass dwarf galaxies of very low luminosity. Many of these objects were only discovered in recent years. Often they are considered as remnants of the building blocks of large galaxies. They appear to be dark-matter-dominated and play a key role in testing predictions of cosmological models for galaxy formation.