We will have our next city meetup on 2026-08-30T10:30:00Z→2026-08-30T12:30:00Z.
Prof. L Sriramkumar, a Professor and a member of the IoE Research Centre for Strings, Gravitation and Cosmology in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras will be delivering a talk titled “A Brief History Of The Universe”.
We are splitting the venue charges among us attendees and we expect it to be around Rs. 200. Please register on this site - Events - Chennai Astronomy Club
Exact venue details will be shared once you make the payment but it’s located in Royapettah near Express Avenue. Since there are limited seats available in the venue, please register as soon as you can.
Talk Description:
Over the last century, we have made considerable progress in the scientific understanding of our universe. In particular, during the last couple of decades, tremendous strides have been taken in observational cosmology that has led to amazing discoveries and fascinating conclusions. Our current view of the universe has come to be referred to as the standard model of cosmology. According to the model, the universe originated in a hot dense state, cooled down as it expanded, allowing gravitation to amplify the tiny inhomogeneities that were present to form clumps of matter that we see around us today as galaxies and clusters of galaxies. These inhomogeneities in turn were supposed to have originated from quantum fluctuations during an early epoch, referred to as inflation. Interestingly, observations also point to the fact that dark matter dominates ordinary baryonic matter and that the universe is currently accelerating, which implies that a strange dark energy dominates the universe today. In this talk aimed at a non-specialist audience, I will outline the observational and the theoretical arguments that form the basis for our current picture of the universe.
If the weather is clear, we will have solar observation with an H-alpha telescope from 3:30 PM to 4 PM.