Meet an Astronomer | Wolf-Rayet Stars: Hot, Massive and Luminous with Kathryn Neugent

Wolf-Rayet stars are evolved, massive stars that help produce many of the heavy elements (such as Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen) as they end their lives as spectacular supernovae. Here, Kathryn Neugent will discuss their physical properties, evolution, and how we find them in our local universe.
*This episode of Meet an Astronomer is sponsored by APS.

[SpaceG]

After watching an Anton Petrov video on W-R stars I came across your video in my curiosity rabbit hole. Your energy and love of this subject held me captive. Thank you for dumbing it done for a commoner like me. 😁

[Jazzzyjay]

Kathryn another Great Presentation - WE NEED YOU BACK! Keep up the great work!

[martinpollard]

This was an excellent presentation for a young astronomer. I am sure I will watch you again down the track. Keep it up. Good job.

[Shine_the_Light]

Thank you. This was very insightful. Thanks for making this easy to understand. Loved all the photos, graphs, and illustrations. Excellent!

[Trolligi]

I actually collected a database of these WRs with radius, temperature and luminosity. I have 271 listed, and counting. Of course there are many more WRs which don’t have measurements on their parameters

[dekemp]

Nice talk. I have taken some slitless spectra of WR stars recently and now I know what emission lines Ian looking at😊
As for the luminosity of a human in your slides: a typical average adult in An office setting gives of 135 watts of Heat, of which 85 are convective so the luminosity would be 50 watts😉. Given An environment of 393K at room temperature of course.

[KulkarniPrashant]

This is one of the best presentation I have seen on WR stars!

[phil]

Thanks very much for a fascinating talk. I'm only sorry that I didn't see it earlier. I have a question, if I may, about whether WR stars change their behaviour and form as they lose their mass. I'm preparing a talk on WR11 in Gamma2Velorum for my local astronomical society in Naples. Italy, and so I noticed that it has lost around 3/4 of its initial mass, and is now outshone by its companion 'O' type star, and I can't find any indication of a nebula remaining in the visual photos I've come across. Are the mass loss and the lack of an apparent nebula around Gamma2Vel linked, or are there other factors in play? And is there any difference in form and behaviour between stars that have spent more or less time in the WR phase? Thanks again for a great talk and thanks in advance for any indication you might give on this one.

[clearcrossroads]

Thank you for "boiling" that down to an entertaining overview! Good luck with the PhD.

[garywood]

NGC253 being about half as far away as M101 would this be a galaxy worth investigating for WR stars?