Star Formation

This is a FREE event. End time is approximate. This event is preceded by a meeting of the San Mateo County Astronomical Society.

Stars are forming all around us, all the time. While a few are clumped into well-known groups, the vast majority seem to be randomly scattered throughout space. However, we have discovered that all stars are in fact born into compact groups. These primordial clusters can only be seen with the aid of infrared telescopes.

Once the young stars become visable, most are in loose associations that disperse in a few million years. A small fraction are in open clusters, which survive for a much longer time. Dr. Stahler will present a unifying theory for these observations, and also draw the connection to globular clusters.

Speaker: Dr. Steven Stahler is an astrophysicist at U. C. Berkeley. Raised in Maryland, he attended graduate school at Berkeley in physics. He was a professor at MIT before returning to the Bay Area in 1992. His research centers on the grand problem of star formation, and he coauthored the first textbook in this field. Steve is an accomplished artist, and especially delights in the deep esthetic appeal of his subject. This is an aspect he tries to convey in his numerous public appearances.