Florida Tech scientists earn NSF grant to study age of stars

The research will take several years because to view markers for activity and to get the temperature of a white dwarf, each star's light must spread out into a spectrum. Very large telescopes are needed to gather enough light to do this –an hour or two for each star is required. Access time on the largest telescopes in the world is highly competitive. This means the typical astronomer is fortunate to win several nights in a given year.

A possible by-product of this research is a check on the ages of our Sun and the galaxy that have been obtained by other techniques. The research may also help to determine how much mass a white dwarf loses as it passes through the red giant stage. This is one of the most uncertain parts of stellar evolution theory.

The recycled material that stars put back into the galaxy as they die provides the heavy elements that form future planets. Oswalt's work, therefore, may help determine what stars are old enough to have planets and, perhaps, shed some light on how much time it takes for life to have evolved on them.

More than a dozen undergraduates to date have participated in Oswalt's project. Graduate students Merissa Rudkin and Kyle Johnston have undertaken dissertation projects directly related to it. Post-doc Silvia Catalan, who is expected to join the project in 2009, will focus on deriving independent age determinations by using stellar evolution models.

The Florida Tech Department of Physics and Space Sciences is home to the largest research telescope in Florida as well as one of the largest astronomy-related undergraduate programs in the United States. In fall 2008 it enrolled almost 200 students in physics and space sciences. About half are women or minorities.