We are now in the era where advanced telescopes can detect light emitted by warm planets. The temperature structure and spectra of these atmospheres depend on a number of factors: The amount of stellar light coming from the parent star, the amount of energy coming from the planet’s interior, the abundances of molecules in the…Continue Reading Modeling the Atmospheres of Exoplanets
Measuring Barium Isotopes in Stars
The elements of the periodic table come in different forms called isotopes. Different isotopes of the same element have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. The distribution of isotopes of a single element can be measured in stars using high-precision spectroscopy. This project involves measuring the amounts of different barium (element…Continue Reading Measuring Barium Isotopes in Stars
The Colors of the Most Massive Galaxies in the Universe
A study of the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe from looking at their optical colors. This project will utilize images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the world’s most extensive data set of galaxies at low redshift, to trace the color profiles of nearby elliptical galaxies out to an unprecedented radius. A possible…Continue Reading The Colors of the Most Massive Galaxies in the Universe
Luminosity Functions of Faint Globular Clusters
Globular cluster are old populations of stars at the outer edges of the Milky Way. Years ago, they were thought to be simple systems whose stars formed at the same time out of the same material. Today we know that the formation and evolution of globular clusters is very complicated. The specific question we would…Continue Reading Luminosity Functions of Faint Globular Clusters
Spectroscopic Properties of Carbon Stars in Andromeda
Carbon stars are a rare subset of evolved stars that contain enhanced carbon in their atmospheres. They are examples of intermediate-age asymptotic giant branch and their demographics provide insight into the star formation history of their host galaxy over the last few billion years. Their enhanced carbon manifests itself in the form of specific molecular…Continue Reading Spectroscopic Properties of Carbon Stars in Andromeda
A Near-Infrared Window into Star Formation Around Quasars
Quasars are accreting supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. Their extreme energy output probably has unusual effects on the galaxies around them, but quasars are so luminous in optical light that they almost entirely outshine the surrounding starlight. This makes it very difficult to measure the properties of their host galaxies. We will…Continue Reading A Near-Infrared Window into Star Formation Around Quasars
Circumnavigating the Galaxy Halo and Exploring the Magellanic Clouds
In the nighttime sky of the southern hemisphere, the Magellanic Clouds are striking in their beauty. Yet, more than just pretty, bright nebulae, these “dwarf satellites” are some of the closest known galaxies to our own, and therefore serve as good laboratories for studying essential astrophysics. I am currently working on a project to understand…Continue Reading Circumnavigating the Galaxy Halo and Exploring the Magellanic Clouds
An Interactive Web-Database for Galaxy Surveys
Modern astronomers are like librarians. In the era of the big observatories and large surveys astronomers must handle gigantic data-sets, and they have to face the challenging task of merging all the data before being able to study the properties of stars and galaxies. To improve this situation, the community has devoted a considerable effort…Continue Reading An Interactive Web-Database for Galaxy Surveys
Exploring the Nature and Origin of Dwarf Elliptical Nuclei
Overall Description / Broad Science Goal:The goal of this project is to learn about the origin of the bright nuclei observed at the centers of dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs) in the Virgo Cluster. One theory for the formation of dE nuclei suggests that these nuclei are effectively “super star clusters” formed by the coalescence of…Continue Reading Exploring the Nature and Origin of Dwarf Elliptical Nuclei
The Discovery of Thousands of Extrasolar Planets: Quantifying the Human Element
NASA’s Kepler Mission is a search for Earth-sized planets in Earth-like orbits around Sun-like stars. This discovery is not all the mission aims to accomplish, however: one of its most important goals is to measure how frequently planets of different sizes occur around other stars, referred to as the “planetary occurrence rate”. To this end,…Continue Reading The Discovery of Thousands of Extrasolar Planets: Quantifying the Human Element