Description of November 5th Radio Show: Evolution of High-Mass Stars

Already available here, below is a description of the November 5th episode of this radio show, which was devoted to the evolution of high mass stars - stars born with a mass more than eight times that of the Sun. On this program I talked about:

• News: Phoenix Mars Lander hopes to extend lifespan by shutting off some instruments (link), experienced a low power fault brought on by a dust storm; MESSENGER spacecraft images more parts of Mercury never seen before (link); NASA tests prototype lunar rover in Arizona (link); congrats to University of Bremen team for winning ESA rover challenge; first hardware for test flight of NASA's new Ares I-X rocket arrives in Florida; NASA to launch space shuttle Endeavor to International Space Station on November 14th; Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission delayed to give more time to prepare data handling unit to replace the one that failed last month - Hubble now using backup and is thankfully working just fine (link); GALEX - a UV satellite - images galaxy near bright star; GREAT08 PASCAL challenge issued to scientists to figure out how to use weak gravitational lensing to study dark matter (link, by the way - they are already lots of people working on it anyway); new James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace" features scenes filmed at astronomer's guest house at ESO's Paranal Observatory; congrats to Roger Cabana who is now director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center; NASA and South Korea sign statement of intent for future cooperation; congrats to receipient of NASA's Small Business Innovations Research Projects (link); NASA awards contract to support mission controls at Goddard Space Flight Center; ESA adapts technology used for Integral satellite to detect radioactive material in airports; American astronauts vote from space on November 4th (link).
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer (my take on the Astronomy content of this ESPN column): "Ripples in space and time" is not just fluff added to a press release, but does mean something and is a consequence of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. And even the most diehard string theorists will says that it is a theory that needs to be proven experimentally. They just argue that it is currently the best theory out there.
• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy/science events in the greater Poughkeepsie area
• Evolution of High-Mass Stars: High-mass stars are able to fuse much heavier elements in their core than their lower mass brethern (all the way up to Iron, rather than just Carbon and Oxygen), but as they do so blow off their outer envelopes in powerful winds. The stars with most powerful winds are called Wolf-Rayet stars, and these are believed to be some of the most massive stars in the galaxy, with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun. A binary of such stars was just discovered in the center of the Westerlund 2 star cluster (link). The outer layers of massive stars can be so dense and hot they undergo explosive fusion. Such an event might have powered an outburst observed in 1843 for very nearby massive star eta Carinae - a more powerful outburst than had ever been observed from a star before (link). The outer layers of massive stars aren't stable, and they contract and expands - getting hotter (and looking bluer) when smaller and cooler (and looking red) when larger. They spend most of their time at the extremes, which is why the discovery of a yellow supergiant binary so exciting (link). Integral satellite discovers massive stars orbiting a neutron star or a black hole behind lots of dusts.

Hope you enjoyed and, as always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated and wanted. Thank you for listening!