A public lecture by Professor Paul Crowther
Stars come in all manner of sizes, named dwarfs, giants and supergiants. The smallest would fit within the M25, while the largest would extend beyond the orbit of Saturn if relocated to the centre of our Solar System.
Stars also possess various colours, from blue, through yellow and orange to red, indicating a range of surface temperatures which extend up to a hundred thousand degrees in some cases.
It is however the mass of a star that dictates how long it will live for and how it will die.
This lecture will introduce different types of star, before focusing on the search for the most massive, so-called "monster stars" in the Universe, which shine up to ten million times brighter than our Sun, albeit only for a few million years.
Professor Paul Crowther is an observational astronomer, and is also interested in UK science policy. He is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield. He has a BSc in Maths and Astronomy and a PhD in Astrophysics, both achieved at UCL.
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