Closer to understand the evolution of massive stars

13/01/2015

The relationship between the stars' effective temperatures and gravities through the spectroscopic Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (sHRD) is a new relevant tool for analyzing the stellar evolution independently of the distance and interstellar extinction of each star. An international team of astronomers, among who is the SO postdoc at the IAC Sergio Simón, have presented, for the first time, the observational distribution of Galactic massive stars (above 8 solar masses) in the sHRD, using spectroscopic measurements of effective temperatures and gravities of almost 600 of such stars. This pioneering work is a further step to establishing boundaries in the still poorly-understood stellar evolution theory of massive stars. More information: Castro et al. 2014, A&A 570, L13