Dr Nicolas Peretto is giving Bath Astronomers a talk on the evening of Wednesday 29th January, 2025. The talk is entitled “The formation of stars: From Sun-like to the most massive ones”. Nicolas joins us from School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University.
Stars regulate the evolution of galaxies across the entire Universe, low-mass stars (m < 2 Msun) dominate their mass while high-mass stars (m > 10 Msun) dominate their luminosity. Also, as they evolve, stars shape the interstellar environment in which they sit via a number of different feedback processes, supernovae explosions being one of them. Amazingly, the evolution of a star’s luminosity and the feedback processes that it will generate throughout its entire life is primarily determined by one parameter: its mass. It becomes then clear that understanding how stellar masses are determined is a fundamental aspect of astrophysics.
In this talk, Nicolas will present our current understanding of stellar formation, a field that has significantly progressed in the past 15 years since the launch of the Herschel Space Observatory. Nicolas will explain how the properties of individual dusty interstellar filaments play a key role in the formation of low-mass stars, and how the networking of those same filaments may lead to the formation of some of the most massive stars there is in the Milky Way.Â
Nicolas arrived at Cardiff University in April 2013 as a Lecturer. Prior to that, from January 2010 to March 2013, he was a COFUND Marie Curie Fellow at CEA Saclay, France. From December 2005 to December 2009, he was a PDRA at the University of Manchester, starting immediately after getting his PhD degree from the Universite Marie Curie in Paris.
This talk is being held at Herschel Museum of Astronomy for members and those interested in astronomy/stargazing. The venue address 19 New King Street, Bath.
Doors open at 7:15pm. The event commences at 7:30pm with an introduction and update of what is going on in the society and the night sky before handing over to the speaker.
Book yourself a seat via Bath Astronomers’ Ticket Office