Astronomy on Tap Corvallis: Neutron Stars: Nature’s Most Versatile Laboratories

Join us on Tuesday August 12th at 7pm for a talk by Dr. Jacob Turner from the Green Bank Observatory. His talk is titled: Neutron Stars: Nature’s Most Versatile Laboratories

Neutron stars are ultra-dense, rapidly spinning objects born in the violent deaths of more massive stars. Smaller on average than Manhattan, these stars have proven to be among the most multifaceted naturally occurring laboratories every found, with applications ranging from studying the structure of the galaxy, to exploring the existence of exotic states of matter, to detecting perturbations in spacetime created by gravitational waves. In this talk, we will explore what neutron stars are, how they are detected, and how they can be used to better understand our universe.

About Dr. Turner

Jacob Turner is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Green Bank Observatory, home to the largest fully steerable telescope in the world. He holds a B.A. in Physics from Oberlin College and a PhD in Physics from West Virginia University. He is a member of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), where he works on noise mitigation techniques for interstellar scattering in pulsar timing data. He also serves as a research mentor for the Pulsar Science Collaboratory, which provides opportunities high school and undergraduate students around the United States to participate in high-impact astronomy research. He is currently helping to develop and test the world’s first cyclic spectroscopy telescope backend, which will become operational at the Green Bank Observatory in the second half of 2026.