Public lecture 'Hunting for Hidden Galaxies Across Cosmic Time'

Understanding how and when galaxies formed and grew requires looking billions of years into the past. Yet this understanding is only as complete as the observations available. Some of the most extreme galaxies, including the most highly star-forming and the earliest galaxies, have long been amongst the hardest to observe. While state-of-the-art telescopes like the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have transformed our view of the early Universe, even humanity's most powerful telescopes have their limits. What have these facilities revealed, and what still remains hidden?

In this lecture, Dr. Jacqueline Hodge* will discuss some of the discoveries enabled by ALMA and JWST, including rapidly star-forming galaxies hidden behind cosmic dust as well as galaxies observed in the Universe's first few hundred million years. She will explore some of the surprises these observations have revealed and their implications for galaxy formation in the early Universe. Finally, she will look at the new questions these findings raise, and the next-generation facility astronomers are now dreaming up to answer them.

Where: Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, lecture hall

When: 12 November 2026, 19.00 - 20.00

Cost: Free with a museum ticket or student card/Museumcard

This public lecture is part of the workshop Galaxy Formation at its Peak.

Information on how to register will follow soon.

*Dr. Jacqueline Hodge is an Associate Professor at the Leiden Observatory, where she leads a research group studying how galaxies form and evolve. Using cutting-edge telescopes, including the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array in Chile and the James Webb Space Telescope, she investigates the gas and dust that fuel star formation in distant galaxies. In this way she reveals how galaxies build up their stars in the early Universe. The impact of her work has been recognised through a Vidi grant from the NWO and, more recently, a prestigious European Research Council Consolidator Grant to explore the nature of the most intensely star-forming galaxies in the early Universe. Beyond research, she is also leading the global astronomical community in developing a next-generation submillimetre telescope.