The Bok Lecture

The Guest Speaker this year is Katie Auchettl.

Katie is from the University of Melbourne, discussing A Stellar Crime Scene: piecing together the Life and Death of Stars.

Stars are the powerhouses for forging elements. During their lives, they can forge elements all the way up to Iron. However, like us, stars also don’t live forever and when they reach the end of their lives, they don’t go quietly but rather explode like a firework in something called a supernova explosion which enriches the universe with these and even heavier elements. However, one of the most uncertain aspects related to our understanding of the endpoints of a star’s life is the link between the properties of the star during its life and the type of supernova explosion that it will undergo.

In this talk, Katie will highlight how we piece together the leftover pieces of these stars using telescopes both on Earth and in space in an attempt to further our understanding of the life and death of stars.