Event Details

Our Galaxy began with little more than H and He, and now has the entire Periodic Table of elements. Stellar nucleosynthesis began very early in the Galaxy’s history, and the fossil records of elementgenerating events are contained in the spectra of very metal poor stars. In this talk Dr. Sneden will review current observational evidence on the relative abundances of three major Periodic Table groups in early Galactic stars: neutron-capture elements, for which the observations are excellent but theory is trying to catch up; Fegroup elements, for which the theoretical predictions are mature but the observations are on shaky ground; and light elements, some of which are still awaiting first reliable observational results. In discussing the light elements, he will introduce the initial observations of very metal-poor stars generated with McDonald Observatory’s new IGRINS high-resolution infrared spectrograph.

Video Recording