Astronomy Seminar
| Date/Time: | Friday, 16 Jan 2015 at 4:10 pm |
|---|---|
| Location: | 38 Physics |
| Contact: | Steven Kawaler, Physics and Astronomy |
| Phone: | 515-294-5440 |
| Channel: | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
This talk will describe work done by astronomers at Iowa State, Adler Planetarium, and Oxford to understand the nature of approximately 900 compact, infrared sources identified by the over 50,000 citizen scientists participating in the Milky Way Project. We show that most of these objects represent an early stage in the evolution of the photodissociation region surrounding regions of massive star formation. Trying to understand why many of these objects were not identified in previous surveys of massive young stellar objects and HII regions leads to some interesting insights into how the mid-infrared emission from a massive star-forming region changes as it evolves. I will also briefly describe some of the other active citizen science projects related to astronomy, and will relate how we are using these projects in our undergraduate courses.