Greg Sloan, Cornell University

How Do Stars Die?  A Study of Evolved Stars in the Local Group

One key unanswered question in astronomy is how stars die.

The answer has many consequences, not least among them how the elemental abundances of galaxies evolve with time.  Using the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope, we have observed mass-losing stars in many metal-poor environments, ranging from Galactic globular clusters to nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies.  We find that for carbon stars, initial metallicity has no detectable influence on the mass-loss process, as measured by the dust they produce, but for oxygen-rich stars, metallicity plays a more obvious role.  This talk will discuss the implications of these findings for galactic evolution at high redshift, consider some of the remaining mysteries, and describe plans for future research.

Host:  Richard Lovelace