Earth & Beyond: Young Stars amid External Radiation and Colliding Clusters
Presented by Alexandra Yep
RASC Calgary
Stars are not born in isolation. Rather, they are born in a cluster of a hundred or even a thousand stars. Star clusters, meanwhile, are not alone either. In galaxies like ours, many of them form in the spiral arms. One may well ask: Do stars affect neighbouring stars? Do clusters affect neighboring clusters? They certainly do. Hot stars can irradiate nearby young stars and prevent them from forming planets. Clusters can collide with each other, such that stars pass through the edges of each other's solar systems and kick up comets and asteroids. It's tough to be a planet out there.
Alexandra Yep is a poet turned astronomer. Her first science course in college was quantum mechanics, and by some miracle she passed the course and kept on going. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. at Georgia State University, researching young stars in a moderate radiation environment and the collision of star clusters. She is on track to graduate this year.
The talk is Thursday, May 20, 2021 @ 7:30 MDT (9:30 EDT)
Passcode: 200735