Astronomy on Tap Madison

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Astronomy on Tap Madison Madison, WI chapter of Astronomy on Tap (astronomyontap.org) hosting local monthly astronomy talks!

AOT IS TOMORROW ‼️‼️‼️ Join us 7pm 🍻 and meet our second speaker Professor Nick Stone! He will be giving his talked tit...
09/14/2026

AOT IS TOMORROW ‼️‼️‼️ Join us 7pm 🍻 and meet our second speaker Professor Nick Stone! He will be giving his talked titled "Black Hole Speed Dating: Single and Binary Black Holes in Busy Environments" 🕳🌌🔭

Gravitational waves are minute ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself, produced by the most violent events in the distant Universe. While gravitational waves were first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916, it would take precisely one century for their existence to be observationally confirmed. In early 2016, the Nobel-prize-winning LIGO experiment announced the direct detection of gravitational waves from a pair of colliding black holes. Since then, LIGO and its partner facilities in Europe and Japan have seen hundreds of such gravitational wave signals, by looking for the tiniest of changes in their 3 kilometer long laser arms: the detection of such waves requires finding changes in laser arm length of a millionth of a quadrillionth of a meter, or roughly a millionth the diameter of a proton! Astrophysically, however, it remains unclear why the Universe has quite so many collisions between black holes.

Nick is an assistant professor in the UW-Madison Astronomy department. Originally from Washington DC, he moved to Madison two years ago. Nick has always been fascinated by black holes, and spends most of his research time as a theoretical astrophysicist thinking about them. In his spare time, he loves biking in the Driftless region and taking his kids to Wisconsin’s many lakes.

AOT IS TOMORROW ‼️‼️‼️ Join us 7pm 🍻 and meet our first speaker Abriana Joy Himantog! She will be giving her talk title...
09/14/2026

AOT IS TOMORROW ‼️‼️‼️ Join us 7pm 🍻 and meet our first speaker Abriana Joy Himantog! She will be giving her talk titled "The Life and Legacy of Nancy Grace Roman" 🌌🔭👀

In the early morning of August 30, 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched with the goal of investigating dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets. But who is the woman behind the namesake of the telescope? Known as the “Mother of Hubble,” Nancy Grace Roman’s contributions as NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy has shaped the field for many decades to come, inspiring new directions of research and innovation, as well as generations of scientists after her.

Abriana is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Astronomy department of UW-Madison. She uses observations of X-ray dust-scattering light echoes to study the interstellar dust within the Milky Way. Outside of research, Abriana likes to read sci-fi/fantasy and throw pottery.

Astronomy on Tap is BACK and it's ONE WEEK AWAY 🔥🔥🔥 Join us 7pm on September 15th 🍻 We have two excellent talks planned...
09/08/2026

Astronomy on Tap is BACK and it's ONE WEEK AWAY 🔥🔥🔥 Join us 7pm on September 15th 🍻 We have two excellent talks planned for the evening "The Life and Legacy of Nancy Grace Roman" by Abriana Himantog and "Black Hole Speed Dating: Single and Binary Black Holes in Busy Environments" by Professor Nick Stone 🕳🌌🔭

We hope to see you there ‼️‼️

AOT IS TOMORROW🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) we hav...
05/19/2026

AOT IS TOMORROW🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) we have three speakers from all over giving public talks for Astronomy on Tap Madison! Join us on WEDNESDAY May 20th at 7pm hosted by and hear our final speaker Prof. Raymond Pierrehumbert give his talk "The Joy of Uninhabitable Worlds"

Most of the exoplanets we can observe and characterize are uninhabitable for life as we know it, some of them wildly uninhabitable. Nonetheless, we can learn a great deal about planets and the prospect for habitability from these cases of failed habitability. I’ll give a tour of some of my favourite uninhabitable worlds – lava planets where it snows beach sand and liquid sodium, subNeptunes with supercritical water layers or magma oceans, a multitude of bare rockballs, and (more conventionally Venus analogues which have undergone a runaway greenhouse. So far, no Venus analogues have been detected, but moving forward into future observational platforms, their study will provide valuable insights into “What could possibly go wrong?”

Ray Pierrehumbert is a Professor of Planetary Physics at Oxford University and Professor of the Practice at MIT/Earth Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and holder of the Cassini Medal. Lead author on IPCC Third Assessment Report. In his free time he is a dedicated melodeon player for Scandi, Balfolk, Trad French and Scottish music.

AOT IS IN 2 DAYS 🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) we h...
05/18/2026

AOT IS IN 2 DAYS 🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) we have three speakers from all over giving public talks for Astronomy on Tap Madison! Join us on WEDNESDAY May 20th at 7pm hosted by and hear our second speaker Dr. Jacob Lustig-Yaeger give his talk "The Fate of Rocky Exoplanet Atmospheres and the Cosmic Shoreline"

The quest to find atmospheres on rocky exoplanets orbiting the very smallest of stars is underway with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). But the universe makes no promises that such planets even have atmospheres due to the harsh stellar environment in which they are found. In this talk, I’ll discuss how studying many worlds allows astronomers to gain profound insights into the formation and evolutionary processes that produce, sculpt, and erode atmospheres. In this quest, if some planets are found to have atmospheres, then we can study them in depth and, ultimately, search for signs of life. But if none do, then humanity’s search for life in the cosmos must pivot to different types of stars.

Jacob Lustig-Yaeger is a Senior Staff Scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrobiology from the University of Washington in 2020. Jacob uses space telescopes and super computers to study the atmospheres of distant exoplanets.

AOT IS IN 4 DAYS 🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) we h...
05/16/2026

AOT IS IN 4 DAYS 🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) we have three speakers from all over giving public talks for Astronomy on Tap Madison! Join us on WEDNESDAY May 20th at 7pm hosted by and hear our first speaker Aiden Zelakiewicz give his talk "Photographing Earth's Distant Relatives with the Habitable Worlds Observatory"

The question “Are we alone?” has captivated scientists and science fiction writers alike for generations. NASA’s next flagship-class astrophysics space telescope, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), is humanity's most ambitious attempt yet to find out. HWO is designed to image planets like Earth around Sun-like stars and search their atmospheres for signs of life. In this talk, Aiden Zelakiewicz will discuss how HWO will hunt for signatures of life on distant Earth-like worlds.

Aiden Zelakiewicz is an Astronomy Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University and a researcher at the Carl Sagan Institute. His work focuses on predicting science yield with next-generation high-contrast imaging missions such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory.

AOT IS IN 9 DAYS 🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with next weeks Astrobiology Science Conference (AbS...
05/11/2026

AOT IS IN 9 DAYS 🔥🔥🔥 This month is a very special event! Coinciding with next weeks Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) we have three speakers from all over giving public talks for Astronomy on Tap Madison! Aiden Zelakiewicz, Dr. Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, and Prof. Raymond Pierrehumbert will be giving talks covering everything you need to know about the current state of astrobiology 🦠🔭👀

This months event is May 20th at 7pm at hosted by . We hope to see you there!

AOT is TOMORROW! Join us tonight at 7pm at 💁‍♀️This month we have visitors from giving their joint talk titled "Space ...
04/21/2026

AOT is TOMORROW! Join us tonight at 7pm at 💁‍♀️This month we have visitors from giving their joint talk titled "Space Rocks and Stardust" 🌠 Meet their third speaker Laila Vleeschower!

As a child, I dreamed to venture into space as an astronaut. However, I later became fascinated with studying the night sky, leading me to pursue a career as an astrophysicist. In 2023, I completed my Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, and subsequently joined UWM as a postdoctoral researcher. My research focuses on searching and timing of pulsars under the NANOGrav project. Beyond physics, I enjoy cooking, practicing yoga, dancing, reading, and traveling.

AOT IS TOMORROW!!!🌌🔭👀 Join us April 21st at 7pm at 💁‍♀️This month we have visitors from giving their joint talk titled...
04/20/2026

AOT IS TOMORROW!!!🌌🔭👀 Join us April 21st at 7pm at 💁‍♀️This month we have visitors from giving their joint talk titled "Space Rocks and Stardust" 🌠 Meet their second speaker Tamal RoyChowdhury!

I have always found the starry night sky to be intriguing. But my genuine interest in Astronomy sparked as an 11-year-old when I was gifted an encyclopedia on space. Going through it, I realized there is more to the night sky than just the dots of light that we see. Growing up I started to take an interest in Physics to know how things work. Hence, I pursued a bachelor’s and a master’s in Physics and decided to continue into research. I joined the graduate program at UWM in 2022 and my research interest is gravitational wave astronomy. Back when I was in school, I used to enjoy explaining to my friends’ the new things I read from different books on space. That stopped happening as I grew up. But maybe some part of me wants to do it again, hence I decided to join the Coffeeshop Astrophysics group. I like reading books and watching soccer in my spare time, and I’m also an avid gamer.

AOT IS TOMORROW!!!🌌🔭👀 Join us April 21st at 7pm at 💁‍♀️This month we have visitors from giving their joint talk titled...
04/20/2026

AOT IS TOMORROW!!!🌌🔭👀 Join us April 21st at 7pm at 💁‍♀️This month we have visitors from giving their joint talk titled "Space Rocks and Stardust" 🌠 Meet their first speaker Pratyasha Gitika!

As a kid, I loved to stare at the night sky and watch aeroplanes sweep past what felt like gazillions of stars. In the final year of my undergraduate, I got a chance to explore the field of astronomy deeply and learn more about the structure and formation of tiny compact stars, named pulsars. This led me to pursue a PhD in using pulsars as probes to search for tiny ripples in spacetime, known as gravitational waves. Now I have joined the pulsar group at UW Milwaukee as a postdoctoral researcher. As a member of coffeeshop astrophysics, I am excited to share how incredible our Universe really is. Apart from research, I enjoy painting and exploring new places.

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