Episode 69: Into the Matrix - Visualising Polar Ring Galaxies

With Dr Lucia Marchetti and Alex Sivitilli

In the second part of the polar ring galaxy series, Jacinta and Tshia drop in on Dr Lucia Marchetti and Alex Sivitilli in the IDIA (The Inter-university Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy) Visualisation Laboratory at UCT (The University of Cape Town) where they learn how Virtual Reality (VR) can be used to model astronomical data in three dimensions in order to study polar ring galaxies.

Lucia is a senior lecturer at UCT and a astronomer working with IDIA. Lucia’s research mostly focuses on Extragalactic astrophysics ( specifically star forming galaxies and strong gravitational lensing) and big data visualization.

Alex is a PhD student working at UCT and IDIA. Alex’s work mainly focuses on big data visualization and astronomy education research.

In this episode Jacinta and Tshia have a go with the VR goggles and take a crack at the Cobra! Join us for another exciting episode of The Cosmic Savannah.