Prof. Zeljko Ivezic: Mapping the Milky Way with SDSS, Gaia and LSST

Prof. Zeljko Ivezic, Departmet of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle

Mapping the Milky Way with SDSS, Gaia and LSST

The formation of galaxies, such as the Milky Way, was long
thought to be a steady process that created a smooth distribution
of stars. Instead, recent discoveries of complex substructure in
the spatial, kinematic and metallicity distributions of the Milky
Way's stars have deeply shaken this standard view. I will discuss
how the unprecedentedly accurate and robust data from modern
surveys, such as Sloan Digital Sky Survey, have enabled some of
these discoveries, and will speculate what further progress can
be expected from the upcoming next-generation surveys, such as
Gaia and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.