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Upcoming Talks

Next Talk

The View from Above

Speakers: Leith Benali, Lulu Agazie

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, September 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, roughly 14,500 satellites have been launched into orbit around Earth. Currently there are about 11,700 active satellites, roughly 1,100 of which are used for Earth science. These are very powerful tools for studying large scale phenomena on Earth that are hard to observe from Earth’s surface. In this talk we’ll talk about how scientists use satellite observations for doing research on everything from weather patterns and tectonic plate movement to air pollution and environmental disasters.

Nebulae: From Cradle to Grave, and Cradle Again

Speakers: Calvin Dear, Jason Vazquez, Caleb Ogle

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, October 25, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Have you ever looked at a stunning picture from NASA full of swirling colors, almost like it should be hanging in an art museum? Chances are, you’re looking at a nebula. Nebulae are enormous clouds of dust and gas out in space. Some nebulae are the aftermath of a supernova, the explosive death of a massive star. Others serve as the birthplace of many new stars, formed by the gravitational pull of gas and radiative push of their first stars. Some nebulae even act as both. Join us as we explore nebulae and their role in star formation, and of course, look at many breathtaking pictures.

Space Rocks and Stardust

Speakers: Pratyasha Gitika, Tamal RoyChowdhury, Laila Vleeschower

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, November 15, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Are shooting stars really stars falling from the sky? Spoiler alert: they’re not! Those quick flashes of light are actually tiny bits of space dust and rock burning up in our atmosphere. In this talk, we’ll take a journey through the leftovers of the formation of our Solar System: asteroids, meteorites, and comets. We’ll talk about how these cosmic “crumbs” sometimes light up our skies as meteor showers, how a rock you could hold in your hand might be older than the Earth itself, and how one very big space rock may have changed the path of life’s evolution on Earth by wiping out the dinosaurs.

What You Probably Don't Know About AI

Speakers: Ronan Humphrey, Adam Opperman, Pratyusava Baral

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Over the last century, computing in science has changed from human computers doing calculations by hand to supercomputers that can perform over $10^{18}$ (that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000!) operations per second. This exponential growth in computing power has enabled the development of sophisticated machine learning algorithms (often referred to as artificial intelligence) capable of analyzing data, recognizing patterns, and making predictions in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. But what even is AI, and how do scientists utilize these evolving technologies? From computing history, to modern environmental and ethical concerns, join us to learn “What You Probably Don’t Know About AI”!

Past Talks

2025

Ghost Hunting in the Cosmos

Speakers: Amanda Baylor, Lulu Agazie, Ronan Humphrey

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, May 3, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Sometimes called the Ghost Particle, neutrinos are mysterious messengers from the cosmos. They rarely interact with normal matter which makes them hard to detect, but they’re everywhere. In fact, about 100 trillion neutrinos are passing through your body every second! In this talk, we’ll discuss what neutrinos are, how we know they exist, and what they can tell us about the universe.
YouTube Video

The Star of our Solar System

Speakers: Laila Vleeschower, Tamal RoyChowdhury

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, April 19, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Our solar system’s central star, the Sun, has shaped human history, influencing mythologies, calendars, and agricultural cycles. Beyond its cultural significance, the Sun’s energy is fundamental to life on Earth, driving climate, weather, and photosynthesis. As the dominant force in the solar system, it dictates planetary orbits and space weather. In this talk, we will explore its structure and composition, its different types of activity, and its ultimate fate as it evolves and eventually dies.

Cosmic Light Show

Speakers: Sarah Villanova Borges, Shashwat Sardesai, Prashant Sukumar

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, March 29, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Auroras are a fascinating phenomenon that arise from the interaction of solar wind and a magnetic field. At the poles, where the field is the strongest, fast moving particles from the sun crash into the atmosphere creating a dazzling light show. Auroras have captivated humanity for a long time. We discuss how the auroras form, what the colors represent, the history and culture associated around them, and the auroras beyond our planet.
YouTube Video

Why does the Earth get Angry?

Speakers: Akash Anumarlapudi, Pratyusava Baral

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 1:00 PM

On 11 March 2011, Japan was hit by an earthquake, 9.1 on the Richter scale, which triggered a 15 meter high tsunami. This chain of events resulted in a nuclear meltdown that lasted for several days, now referred as the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Why did this happen? And more generally, why and how does any earthquake, tsunami, or even a volcanic eruption happen? Understanding these natural calamities entails understanding the structure and dynamical evolution of the Earth. From stardust, 4.6 billion years ago to a highly structured planet arranged by a core, a mantle, and a crust in the present day, the evolution of our planet hides many interesting secrets essential for life. Join us on February 22 at Anodyne as we dive into the science behind the formation of our planet, its current day structure, and its continuous movement resulting in the formation of continents.
YouTube Video

2024

Fine, we'll talk about aliens

Speakers: Amanda Baylor, Ronan Humphrey, Gabe Freedman

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, December 7, 2024 at 1:00 PM

In 1950 during a lunchtime conversation at Los Alamos National Laboratory, physicist Enrico Fermi asked “where is everybody?“. Fermi then went on to estimate that given the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy and probability of Earth-like planets, we should have been contacted by extraterrestrials by then. If the universe is so vast, why do we seem to be alone in it? What about the “Wow!” signal or that face on Mars? Maybe we have had contact and just don’t know it! Join us to discuss extraterrestrial signals, unexplained phenomena, and the relationship between science and the public when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial life.
YouTube Video

Cosmic Clutter

Speakers: Akash Anumarlapudi, Leith Benali, Laila Vleeschower

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 1:00 PM

Satellites have become essential to modern life, even if we don’t always realize it. They enable remote communication, give us navigation directions on demand, assist in climate research, and can even be used as tools to uncover the mysteries of the Universe. But once they’re in space, how long do they stay operational, and what happens when they stop working? With so many satellites orbiting Earth, what happens when it gets too crowded? These questions have been a core point in the development of international “Space Law.” Join us as we explore the fascinating world of satellites — their purpose, their risks, and how we manage the growing challenge of space debris.
YouTube Video

UW-Madison Astronomy on Tap 2: The Tappening – featuring special guests from UW-Madison

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, October 26, 2024 at 1:00 PM

We are very excited to welcome back our friends from UW-Madison Astronomy on Tap for the second edition of our AOT/CSA crossover. Instead of one longer talk, there will be two shorter presentations and perhaps some fun trivia in the middle. Hope to see you there!

Volcanic Planets - In the Solar System and Beyond

Speakers: Juliette Becker

Volcanoes are some of the most spectacular and powerful forces shaping planetary landscapes. They not only sculpt the surface but also influence the atmosphere and potential habitability of a world. In our own solar system, Jupiter’s moon Io stands out as the most volcanically active body. Its surface is a constantly changing tapestry, driven by interior tidal stresses that cover its surface in volcanic craters. In this talk, we’ll embark on a journey from Io’s changing landscape to the surfaces of distant planets orbiting other stars. We’ll explore how the same tidal forces that energize Io might also ignite volcanoes on worlds far beyond our solar system. Specifically, we’ll delve into the intriguing L 98-59 system, where Earth-sized planets may be experiencing their own volcanic activity due to similar gravitational interactions that occur in the Io-Jupiter system.

Dancing with the Stars: Spinning, Slinging, and Swinging Across the Universe

Speakers: Rachel Lee McClure

Stars live and die on expansive timescales. They jiggle, they wiggle, they expand, they spin, they orbit, and they oscillate on their journey throughout the universe. From scales ranging from the surface of a star, to the dynamics of stellar orbits and interacting galaxies, all the way to the expansion of the universe itself, we will explore the stellar dance that fills the cosmos.

Galaxies: From Cradle to Grave

Speakers: Prasanth Sukumar, Shashwat Sardesai, Sarah Villanova Borges

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, September 28, 2024 at 1:00 PM

At 2.5 million light-years from Earth, the Andromeda galaxy is the most distant object that a human can see with the naked eye. While it may seem like just a tiny blob of light against the night sky, Andromeda, along with billions of other galaxies in our universe, contain hundreds of billions of stars as well as more powerful compact objects lurking deep within their cores. Galaxies come in all shapes and sizes and reveal much about the dynamics and structure of our universe. Come to our talk and learn all about galaxies, from their humble beginnings to their strange and mysterious ends, and everything in between!
YouTube Video

A Journey through the Astrophysics Discoveries of the Past 10 Years

Speakers: Sarah Borges, Laila Vleeschower

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 1:00 PM

The landscape of astrophysics research and our understanding of the universe has changed dramatically over the past 10 years since the founding of Coffeeshop Astrophysics. Gravitational waves were first discovered in a groundbreaking detection by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO). The discovery of thousands of exoplanets, some potentially habitable, helped expand the horizons of planetary science. There were also enormous advancements in space technology and instrumentation such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which in only a couple of years has completely transformed our understanding of the universe both near and far. In this talk we will review the exciting discoveries and scientific improvements of the last decade and talk about what we hope to accomplish in the next ten years!
YouTube Video

Coffeeshop Astrophysics Celebrates its 10-Year Anniversary! - featuring special guests

Speakers: Sydney Chamberlain, Laleh Sadeghian, Casey McGrath

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, April 27, 2024 at 1:00 PM

In 2014 Coffeeshop Astrophysics was founded as a small public outreach group aimed at bringing accessbile scientific talks to the Milwaukee community and fostering a love for astrophysics in people of all ages and backgrounds. Now 10 years later, we have given over 75 public talks at the Anodyne coffeeshop in Walker’s Point and seen dozens of UWM graduate students and postdocs participate. Most importantly we have seen our audience grow to include a mix of long-time attendees as well as many newcomers just discovering our talk series. We are excited to welcome back three past members of Coffeeshop Astrophysics who were integral to its growth and development. They will share with you all the cool work, scientific or otherwise, that they have been up to since leaving UWM. We want to sincerely thank each and every one of you for your support over the past 10 years, and we look forward to 10 more years of sharing science with you and the greater Milwaukee community.
YouTube Video

Special Guest Presentation featuring UW-Madison Astronomy on Tap

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 1:00 PM

We are very excited to welcome two presenters from the UW-Madison Astronomy on Tap public outreach group. This event will be a little different than what you’re used to, with two shorter talks and plenty of time for questions, trivia, and more fun. Should be a great time!

The New Baby Boomers: Behemoth Black Holes Formed at the Dawn of Time?

Speakers: Christy Tremonti

The James Webb Space Telescope is transforming our knowledge of the earliest stages of galaxy formation. One of the biggest surprises has been the finding that small, young galaxies often contain whoppingly large black holes at their centers. We’ll talk about what a black hole is, how they form, and how we know they exist. Then we’ll discuss why it’s so surprising to see really big black holes early in the Universe’s history and what it might mean.

Observing the Invisible Universe

Speakers: Nickolas Pingel

Astronomers use radio telescopes to detect a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is not visible to the human eye. This talk will outline how radio telescopes work, explore the different cosmic phenomena that can be observed with radio telescopes, such as supernova remnants, the gaseous components of galaxies, and pulsars, and how radio astronomy contributes to our understanding of these objects.

Who Hid the Sun?

Speakers: Pratyusava Baral, Leith Benali

Venue: Anodyne Coffee Shop (224 W Bruce St, Milwaukee)

Date & Time: Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 1:00 PM

On Monday, April 8, 2024, the Moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun creating a total solar eclipse whose path will cross over North America. In this talk, we will prepare you for this extraordinary astronomical event! Come learn about what happens during an eclipse, the differences between solar and lunar eclipses, how they have influenced various cultures, what role they have played in the history, and how we can safely view it.
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