IAU Symposium 277: Tracing the Ancestry of Galaxies
Start date: 13 Dec 2010
Address: Hôtel Indépendance, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
This Symposium will be the opportunity to examine the possible links between nearby, mature galaxies and the distant objects that our deepest extragalactic surveys now routinely uncover. Major open questions pertaining to the evolution of these objects into the galaxies we see today will be addressed and confronted to theoretical models of galaxy formation and evolution. In recent years, the multi-wavelength mapping of galaxies has enabled a new vision of their structure and composition that may, or may not, be compatible with theoretical precepts.
The Symposium will bring together theorists and observers in an attempt to reach a common understanding of the puzzles that our research has recently unfolded, largely through the study of galaxy dynamics and their stellar populations at low and high redshifts. With Meerkat (Karoo Array Telescope) and Salt (South African Large Telescope) in operation in South Africa and Astrophysics being developed in Burkina Faso, it seems timely to hold such a meeting in Africa, especially following the IYA and the resolution of the 2009 IAU General Assembly asking to support the development of Astronomy in emerging countries.