Marc Kassis (GRS'03) has stars in his eyes. More precisely, he is examining M17, a molecular cloud complex more than 7,000 light years from Earth, so massive and luminous that in 1764 Charles Messier, a French astronomer, was able to see it with the naked eye. Kassis and CAS Assistant Astronomy Professor Lynne Deutsch, his advisor, are studying stellar objects within this cloud, two young stars-in-the-making called IRS5 and M17-UC1. They are analyzing the environment in which these young stars are growing and maturing, tracking down vital clues to the conditions and materials that constitute the building blocks of stars.
The researchers compiled data at the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility, on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, measuring the infrared energy emitted from the dust and hydrocarbon molecules surrounding the stars. Their data revealed high concentrations of ionized gas moving out from a young, but more mature star (CEN1) nearby, and an area richer in hydrocarbon emissions in the cooler, denser region of the cloud closer to the emerging stars IRS5 and M17-UC1. These results seem to confirm the common belief that hydrocarbons play a key role in star formation.
Now Deutsch, as principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded effort, is heading a team, including Kassis and Joseph Adams from the BU astronomy department, and Joseph Hora from the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, that is designing and building a new, more powerful instrument to focus on M17. The mid-infrared spectrometer and imager (MIRSI) will cover a larger area than any existing camera operating in the mid-infrared. It will not only make high-quality infrared images of areas of the universe thousands of light years from Earth, but will also be able to switch within minutes to spectroscopy mode, allowing scientists to do a full spectrum analysis of the area in view.
With it Kassis and his colleagues hope to learn more about the molecular clouds that provide the essential elements from which new stars, and possibly new life, emerge.
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