Scattered-light echoes: a cosmic stealth radar

Scattered light echoes offer one of the most effective means to probe the structure and composition of circumtellar and interstellar media. Of note, light echoes provide exact three-dimensional positions of scattering dust. However, they are also very rare, and have only been unambiguously resolved around a handful of sources. I will discuss the history of light echo astronomy, and how they can be used to study the environments around variable stars and cataclysmic events. I will also show results from almost all of the known echo sources, including SN 1987A, whose echoes have produced the first 3-D map of a high-mass star's mass-loss history.

 

Date: 
24/05/2007 - 14:00
Speaker: 
Ben Sugerman
Filiation: 
Goucher College (Baltimore)


Seminars