| 3 | | |
| 4 | | Title: White Dwarfs - all you need to know about the Universe |
| 5 | | |
| 6 | | Abstract: What are some of the big questions in astronomy these days? |
| 7 | | 1) What is the age of the Universe? 2) When did the galaxies form? |
| 8 | | 3) How did they form? 4) When did most of the stars form? 5) What can we learn |
| 9 | | about fundamental physics from astronomical observations? |
| 10 | | 6) Is there an efficient way to find evidence for planets in the environment |
| 11 | | in which they formed? |
| 12 | | |
| 13 | | In this talk I will show how our total of 414 HST orbits over the past 15 years |
| 14 | | has provided insight into most of these questions. In particular, I'll mention how we derived |
| 15 | | an age for the oldest stars thus confronting cosmologically derived ages for the Universe, |
| 16 | | how we have recognized an age difference between the halo and thick disk of the Galaxy, |
| 17 | | how we have tested basic white dwarf cooling theory and found it to be wanting, and how |
| 18 | | we have been searching for evidence of planets in very old stellar clusters, which, if found |
| 19 | | could suggest an early rise to life in the Universe. |
