A transient astronomical event, often shortened by astronomers to a ‘transient’, is an astronomical object or phenomenon whose duration may be from seconds to days, weeks, or even several years. This is in contrast to the timescale of the millions or billions of years during which the galaxies and their component stars in our universe have evolved. Singularly, the term is used for violent deep-sky events, such as supernovae, novae, dwarf nova outbursts, gamma-ray bursts, and tidal disruption events, as well as gravitational microlensing, transits and eclipses. These events are part of the broader topic of time domain astronomy.

Presenter: Andrew J. Connolly
Professor of Astronomy, University of Washington
Director of the DIRAC (Data Intensive Research in Astrophysics and Cosmology) Institute

Host: Professor Raffaella Margutti, chair of Hot-wiring the Transient Universe VI. This public lecture is presented as part of the “Hot-wired” 2019 meeting.