Life and Death: Stars Reimagined

Talks on Tuesdays: Real lectures in your favourite venues. 45-mins + Q&A with Jayde Willingham

Talks on Tuesdays is a live event series bringing big ideas, real experts, and curious minds together - at your favourite local venues. Think thought-provoking lectures, audience questions, and post-talk mingling over drinks and dinner.

This isn’t a uni lecture. It’s a social, intelligent night out. Come alone or with friends, leave with something to talk about.

Event Schedule:

6.30pm Arrival & Doors Open

7pm Lecuture Starts

7.45pm Q&A

8pm Talk Concludes

8.30pm Event Closes.

*Please arrive close to 6.30pm

A La Carte menu and full bar available throughout the night - pay as you go.

Your Topic:

Life and Death: Stars Reimagined

Every atom of iron in your blood was forged inside a star, and that star had to die for you to exist!

In this talk, PhD researcher Jayde Willingham tells the life story of a star, from the cold clouds of dust where it’s born to the spectacular ways it can go out. We’ll find out why the biggest stars burn bright and die young while tiny ones can outlive the universe’s current age many times over, what’s going to happen to our own Sun, and how a dying star can end up as a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. Along the way: exploding stars, the cosmic recycling system that turns stellar ashes into new stars and planets, and the question of whether we’ll see the next supernova in our galaxy. Join Jayde as she explores how stars live, how they die, and why we wouldn’t be here without them.

Your Speaker:

Jayde Willingham

Jayde Willingham is a PhD candidate in astrophysics at Swinburne University of Technology. Her research explores how the Universe came to be the way it is today; what it's made of, how galaxies and black holes are born, and how they change over time. Right now, she's investigating how the black holes at the hearts of galaxies grow, to help explain why astronomers are spotting far more massive objects in the early Universe than anyone expected.