Stellar Deaths & Cosmic Fireworks

Guest Speaker

Thursday, 12th December 2019 (19:45 - 22:00)

Venue: Meeting Room, Swinton Bottom Club (Formerly Swinton WMC)

Summary: 

Carl Sagan said "We are made of star dust". Well, that dust comes from Supernovae! Giant stellar explosions that can release as much energy as the Sun will in its entire lifetime. 

Two years ago, another type of stellar explosion was observed for the first time: a Kilonova - the merger of two neutron stars. If you wear a gold or platinum wedding ring, that's where it came from!
In this talk I will give an overview of supernovae and kilonovae and how stars evolve to create these beautiful and cataclysmic cosmic fireworks.

Speaker: Heloise Stevance

About me: 

I am a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. I study stellar populations to better understand how stars evolve to produce kilonovae and gravitational wave counterparts in general.

I did my PhD at the University of Sheffield, studying the shape of core collapse supernovae.