Photo courtesy NASA Hubble Galleries
Sam Miller
On Sunday, Feb. 16, the SaddleBrooke Skygazers Astronomy Club will present Dr. Manisha Shrestha, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona. The program presentation will be at the DesertView Theater, 39900 S Clubhouse Dr., at 7 p.m. Dr. Shrestha’s research focuses on the dramatic final stages of massive stars, exploring how they end their lives as gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and kilonovae.
Just like all living things, stars are born, age, and eventually die. The fate of a star is determined by its mass. Stars with a mass more than eight times that of our Sun end their life as explosive events, such as supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. These events are one of the most energetic phenomena in the universe. They influence galaxy evolution, the synthesis of elements essential for life on Earth, and the generation of gravitational waves. However, our understanding of the final stages of these massive stars and the variety of explosions remains incomplete. In this talk, Dr. Shrestha will explore how her research group at the University of Arizona is working to bridge the gap between these explosive events and their massive stellar progenitors.
Manisha Shrestha, a native of Kathmandu, Nepal, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on the dramatic final stages of massive stars, exploring how they end their lives as gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and kilonovae. To unravel these mysteries, she employs a combination of multi-wavelength observational data with sophisticated simulations. She earned her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Denver and previously held a postdoctoral position at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Her research interests span stellar physics and time-domain astrophysics.
The SaddleBrooke Skygazers Astronomy Club meets monthly (and typically) on the second (third this month) Sunday evening at 7 p.m. at the DesertView Theater. The next star parties are on Thursday, Feb. 20, and Tuesday, March 4 at the Softball Field parking lot from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The public is welcome to both. Club and Star Party information can be obtained by emailing Sam Miller at [email protected].