ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM

Over the past decade, major advances have deepened our understanding of how interstellar gas and dust evolve into stars and planetary systems. Observations of nearby galaxies reveal detailed star formation processes, while JWST and ALMA now allow us to probe the gas and dust properties of galaxies as far back as the Epoch of Reionization (z ~ 6).

Despite this progress, there is a diversity of understanding. We will highlight those issues where recognizing a few paradoxes can lead to surprising but fundamental understanding – e.g. the role of spiral structure, the trigger of star cluster formation, the lifetimes of molecular clouds and the role of atomic gas.

We also introduce a new JWST-ALMA survey that creates spatial maps of the chemical evolution of galaxies out to z ~ 5, shedding light on early supermassive black hole growth, enrichment of the circum-galactic medium, and the emergence of metals and dust in typical galaxies in the early universe.