Found 25 talks archived in ISM and nebulae

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Friday November 20, 2009
Dr. Robert Williams
Space Telescope Science Institute, USA

Abstract

Spectroscopic observations of novae date back a century, and the fundamental nature of the outburst has been understood for 50 years. Yet, recent observations suggest possible major modifications to the standard nova paradigm. A high-resolution spectroscopic survey of novae has revealed short-lived heavy element absorption systems near maximum light consisting of Fe-peak and s-process elements. The absorbing gas is circumbinary and it must pre-exist the outburst. Its origin appears to be mass ejection from the secondary star, implying large episodic mass transfer events from the secondary that initiate the nova outburst. The spectroscopic evolution of novae is interpreted in terms of two distinct interacting gas systems in which the bright continuum is produced by the outburst ejecta but absorption and emission lines originate in gas ejected by the secondary star in a way that may explain dust formation and X-ray emission from novae.

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Thursday March 19, 2009
Dr. Fernando Comerón
European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany

Abstract

Most studies of the stellar and substellar populations of star forming regions rely on the identification of the signatures of accretion, outflows, circumstellar dust, or activity characteristic of the early stages of stellar evolution. However, the decay of these observational signatures with time limits our ability to understand the complete star forming history of young aggregates, and to obtain unbiased samples of young stellar objects at different stages of disk evolution. I will present the results of a wide-area study of the stellar population of selected clouds in the nearby Lupus star forming region, initially defined to complement the data obtained by the Spitzer Space Observatory Legacy Program “From molecular cores to planet-forming disks”. When combined with 2MASS photometry, our data allow us to fit the spectral energy distributions of well over 150,000 sources seen in that direction, and to identify possible new members based on their photospheric fluxes alone, with independence of the display of signposts of youth. In this way we identify a very clear signature of the existence of a surprisingly numerous and thus far unrecognized population of cool members of Lupus 1 and 3, which is absent from Lupus 4.
The approximately 130 new members that we identify show that Lupus 1 and 3 have been forming low mass stars in numbers comparable to, or even exceeding in Lupus 1, those revealed by recent sensitive surveys based on the signposts of youth. We hypothesize on several possibilities for the origin of this population that may account for its puzzling properties of general lack of disks, coevality with the disk-bearing population, and preferential off-cloud location, which hint at a picture more complex and interesting than the quiescent formation inside dense molecular clouds.

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Thursday December 18, 2008
Dr. Arianna Cortesi
University of Nottingham, UK

Abstract

We present a detailed study of the lenticular galaxy NGC 1023 kinematics. To perform this analysis we use planetary nebulae (PNe). which can be observed in the faint outer regions of the galaxy, where traces of the galaxy past history are clearly recorded. If the circular speed is equal or lower than the stars velocity dispersion, the system is hot and it is the result of a minor merger. Otherwise, if the stellar motions are rotation dominated at large radii, a spiral galaxy is the progenitor of the lenticular. A first attempt at such an analysis was undertaken by Noordermeer et al. (2008), who found that the S0 system NGC 1023 has very peculiar kinematics in its disk, which do not seem to be consistent with either of the above scenarios. In this paper we show that that result was largely due to a contamination of the disk kinematics by stars belonging to the spheroidal component or accreted from the small companion. We present a new method based on a more sophisticated maximum-likelihood analysis that uses a full two-dimensional disk/spheroid decomposition to solve simultaneously for both disk and spheroid kinematics. This analysis reveal that NGC1023 has the kinematics expected for a stripped spiral galaxy.


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Thursday November 27, 2008
Dr. Valentina Luridiana
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain

Abstract

Primordial helium might seem to be just a tiny piece in our understanding of how the Universe was born; still, it is a piece that must fit in if we are to ensure that the whole Big Bang scenario is consistent. During the last decade, a significant effort has been aimed at achieving the necessary accuracy to achieve this goal. While we still do not have a firm handle on it, we have learned quite a few things on the way. The talk will provide a review of this quest, highlighting the uncertainties that still remain and the feedback that it has provided to our knowledge of how H II regions work.

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Friday July 11, 2008
Dr. Mauricio Tapia
Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM, Sede Ensenada, Mexico

Abstract

El jovencísimo cúmulo GM 24, a una distancia de 2 kpc, se encuentra embebido en una caliente nube de CO aislada, en donde se formó hace menos de 105 años. El núcleo del cúmulo se compone de estrellas O tardías y de tipo B principalmente y pareciera carecer actualmente de una población estelar de baja masa. Se presentan nuevas observaciones en el infrarrojo cercano y medio que dan mayor definición a las características de sus principales objetos estelares jóvenes.



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