|
About the Stardust Group
We are a group within the Department of Physics &
Astronomy at the University of
Missouri-Columbia (MU) researching evolved stars and dust. Our group consists of faculty,
post-docs, graduate students and undergraduate students, led by Assistant
Professor of Astrophysics Dr. Angela Speck.
Back row (left to right): B. Menzi Mchunu, Adrian Corman, Caleb Wheeler, Anthony Smith, David Arrant
Front row (left to right): Lanika Ruzhitskaya, Nina Wakeman, Prof. Angela Speck, Dan Caputo, Chris Azmeh
Our Research
"If
we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would
it?" - Albert Einstein
Intermediate mass stars (0.8-8.0 solar masses) end their lives on
the asymptotic giant branch (AGB). The intensive mass loss which
characterizes the AGB produces a circumstellar shell of dust, molecules
and neutral gas. At the end of the AGB, mass loss stops (or at least
decreases dramatically) and the circumstellar shell begins to drift away
from the star. At the same time the central star begins to shrink and
heat up from about 3000K until it is hot enough to ionize the surrounding
gas, at which point the object becomes a planetary nebula (PN). Between
the end of the AGB phase and the onset of ionization indicative of the PN
phase is the post-AGB or proto-planetary nebula (PPN) phase.
In order to understand the nature of the material that goes on to
enrich the ISM, we need to understand dust and molecule formation and
processing during the lifetime of a star, i.e. during the AGB,
proto-planetary nebula (PPN) and PN phases. Our group investigates the
nature of the circumstellar material around AGB stars PPNe and PNe from a
variety of perspectives, including dust shell morphologies, relative
locations of different molecular, ionized and dust species and the
mineralogy of the dust. A
list of the group’s publications can be found here.
Join Us!
If you are an undergraduate
student, graduate student or post-doc interested in astronomy and
astrophysics and wish to conduct research within our group or just learn
more about the astronomy program at MU please contact Dr. Angela Speck at
speckan@missouri.edu or
573-882-8371 or visit her webpage
for more info.
|
