[Astro] [CAPT] Astro seminar Stephen Wilkins (Sussex) -- Wed 18 Feb 15:45 C4

[Luke Conaboy (staff)]

ps. we will go for dinner with Stephen in the evening, probably somewhere in town. Let me know if you'd like to join!

> On 16 Feb 2026, at 13:14, Luke Conaboy (staff) <Luke.Conaboy at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> this week our seminar is given by Stephen Wilkins (Sussex), details below. The seminar will be in C4, followed by wine and cheese.
> 
> Timings are as usual:
> 
> - lunch at Lakeside, leaving CAPT ~13:00 (subsidised for a limited number of students -- let me know before the end of the day tomorrow)
> - meet the speaker for postgrads at 15:00, finishing at 15:30
> - seminar at 15:45 in C4
> - post-seminar wine and cheese at 16:45
> 
> This seminar will be conducted in person only.
> 
> Best,
> Jesse, Luke and Tutku
> 
> ==
> 
> Exploring the formation of the first stars, black holes, and galaxies
> 
> According to the Big Bang model, the Universe began in an extremely hot, dense state around 14 billion years ago. After a brief period of early evolution, it entered the cosmic dark ages, an era during which dark matter and gas slowly assembled into the first stars, black holes, and galaxies.
> We are now entering a transformative period in observational extragalactic astronomy. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has pushed our view of the cosmos to within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang providing observations of thousands of galaxies within the early Universe. JWST has also revealed surprising populations of early galaxies with unusual chemical enrichment patterns, and enigmatic compact sources known as “Little Red Dots”, which may offer new insight into the formation of the first supermassive black holes. JWST’s discoveries are being complemented by the wide-area Euclid mission, and will soon be augmented by the Square Kilometre Array Observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and the Extremely Large Telescope.
> 
> At the same time, cosmological simulations have become extraordinarily sophisticated, capable of modelling the growth of structure across cosmic time. Yet early JWST results reveal emerging tensions with these models, suggesting that key aspects of early galaxy formation may require revision.
> 
> In this talk, I will present recent work from my group and collaborators and discuss how these observations and simulations together are reshaping our understanding of the first billion years of cosmic history.


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