event
Wednesday 16 May 2012: Exploring the Local Universe with Massive Stars
Dr Ben Davies - IoA, University of Cambridge
Physics, 4th floor 14:00-14:30
Stars with masses greater than 10Msun evolve off the main-sequence to become Red Supergiants. At this point they become incredibly bright, especially at near-IR wavelengths, meaning they can be observed at very large distances and through high extinction. This makes them powerful probes of astrophysical processes in our own Galaxy and across the Local Group. Here I will describe how we have used these stars to address the topics of: star cluster formation across the Milky Way; the progenitors of neutron stars; and the chemical evolution of the Milky Way and other nearby star-forming galaxies.
