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 Our final meeting of 2019 will be on Monday 2nd December, it starts at 8pm sharp in our usual venue of Ballyclare High School Lecture Theatre. Directions can be found here.
The speaker for this meeting is Dr Matt Redman from The Centre of Astronomy at Galway University. He will be giving a talk entitled The Shaping of Planetary Nebulae
About Matt I completed my doctoral studies under Professor John Dyson at the University of Manchester, following him to the University of Leeds. A new model for one of the earliest manifestations of the birth of the most massive stars was developed. Upon graduation I moved back to the Jodrell Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor John Meaburn. Using instruments installed on the Anglo- Australian Telescope, led to the discovery of highly explosive outbursts in objects known as Planetary Nebula, which had previously been thought to evolve in a steady fashion. This was followed by the discovery of evidence for sequential, nested supernova explosions in two peculiar objects, the Pencil Nebula and the Honeycomb Nebula.
My research programmes now bring together the themes of star formation and star destruction and I have studied how low mass star formation can proceed in the vicinity of violent massive stars. A recently new research theme, inspired by the widespread discovery of exoplanets, is to investigate the effects of the destruction of planets on the evolution of sun-like stars as they evolve to form (coincidentally, and confusingly misnamed!) planetary nebulae, the shaping of which are not understood. This work has been well supported by grants for PhD students and a postdoctoral researcher.
Please note: Under 16's are very welcome but due to our child protection policy, we ask that they are accompanied by an adult.
As always we will have refreshments available after the meeting including mince pies, a festive treat on the run up to Christmas. A donation bucket is available at the door if you wish to support us in our work!
Hope to see you all there!
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