This month's Nanaimo Astronomy Society speaker will talk about gazing at the stars, and also at the size of stars.
Joaquín Bohigas Bosch, former researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Oxford University, will explain the effect a star’s mass has on itself and orbiting planets, and how size matters when it comes to what elements stars produce, how they live out their lives and how they die.
Bosch will speak at the astronomy society's meeting Thursday, March 27.
His presentation will discuss intermediate-mass stars up to eight times the mass of the sun, and how these stars go through the first two stages of stellar evolution – hydrogen and helium fusion – and end their existence at white dwarfs, regardless of how massive they were when they were formed. Less massive stars, such as red dwarfs, he explained in a press release, are unable to produce helium fusion, while more massive stars complete all possible fusion reactions and eventually collapse into neutron stars or black holes.
Intermediate mass stars such as the sun are also the stars that produce carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, and seed these three basic elements of life onto orbiting planets. It is now known that life can only prosper in planets orbiting intermediate mass stars that are up to 10 per cent more massive than the sun.
He will also examine other ranges of stars’ physical properties, such as surface temperature, size, luminosity and radius, and discuss their evolution after they were formed by collapses of molecular clouds.
During his career, Bosch, who retired in 2021, primarily investigated different manifestations of the interstellar medium, such as the remnants of supernovae, star-forming regions and planetary nebula, but also spent part of his time in teaching and outreach activities and presiding over and developing instrumentation for the National Astronomical Observatory in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir, Baja California. Bosch is also the author of The Discovery of Stars: How We Came to Know What Stars Are.
The meeting is Thursday, March 27, at 7 p.m. at the Beban Park Social Centre. There will also be a show-and-tell session by society member Robert Lachance on tabletop SeeStar telescopes. For more information, visit www.nanaimoastronomy.com.
