Star Talks: The Beautiful and Unusual Dust Surrounding Wolf-Rayet Binaries
Program Description
Event Details
| About a half a century ago, some very hot stars were discovered to have dust clouds surrounding them. These stars, called Wolf-Rayet stars, are older massive stars that have lost their hydrogen - both in their cores where fusion happens and in their outer atmospheres that we can observe. The dusty Wolf-Rayet stars all have a large amount of carbon in their winds that we can observe, and the resulting big question was: "how can dust form in parts of space with so much damaging radiation?€ Noel Richardson is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, having been at the Prescott campus since 2019. He works on studying massive binaries, especially Wolf-Rayet systems, using all types of telescopes across the globe and in space. This talk will highlight his favorite work: how dust forms around unusual Wolf-Rayet stars - with results from his research group that have been made with telescopes like JWST, the Keck Observatory (10-m telescopes), the international Gemini Observatory (8-m telescopes), the CHARA Array (6 1-m telescopes that can be combined to be an effective size of a 330-m telescope), and some data from ERAU's campus observatory. Star Talks are held in partnership with Prescott Astronomy Club and presented with funding from Friends of the Prescott Public Library. |
