The Birth of Stars: Unraveling a Cosmic Conundrum
By: Peggy Mueller
It is now well accepted that stars form from clouds of gas and dust that collapse under their own gravity. However, if the angular momentum of the collapsing cloud was not removed during its formation, the young star would spin up so much that it would ultimately tear itself apart. Nevertheless, there are young stars rotating at a fraction of their break-up speed. How can we explain this conundrum? After an overview of the early stages of stellar evolution, this talk will focus on how we tested one of the explanations for this puzzling observation and what we learned.
Speaker Bio: Peggie Mueller has been a member of the Houston Astronomical Society since 2021. Her interest in astronomy deepened in 2016 after taking Modern Astronomy as part of the Master of Liberal Arts program at Rice University. Under the mentorship of Prof. Chris Johns-Krull, Peggie developed her capstone project which led to a published paper, Tests of Disk-Locking in T Tauri Stars of the ONC, in the March 2024 Astrophysical Journal. Tonight’s talk draws from their research, offering insights from her project and ongoing engagement in astronomy.
To see the video, click The Birth of Stars: Unraveling a Cosmic Conundrum.