Table of Contents

Preface xi An Introductory Remark xv 1 What Is Stellar Archaeology? 1 1.1 The First Minutes after the Big Bang 2 1.2 Stellar Archaeology 7 2 Two Centuries of Pursuing Stars 10 2.1 First Glimpses of Stellar Rainbows 11 2.2 Decoding Starlight 16 2.3 A New Perspective of the Cosmos 22 2.4 Looking into the Hearts of Stars 29 2.5 Modern Alchemy 35 2.6 The Foundation of Cosmology 38 2.7 The Origin of the Elements 44 3 S tars, Stars, More Stars 51 3.1 The Cycle of Matter in the Universe 51 3.2 Astronomers and Their Metals 55 3.3 Element Nucleosynthesis in the Cosmic Kitchen 59 3.4 Stellar Diversity 73 4 Stellar Evolution-From Birth to Death 78 4.1 Sorting Stars 78 4.2 A Protostar Forms 85 4.3 The Evolution of a Low-Mass Star 88 4.4 The Evolution of a Massive Star 93 4.5 Supernovae and Supernova Remnants 95 4.6 Preliminary Thoughts about Working with Metal-Poor Stars 102 5 Neutron-Capture Processes and the Heaviest Elements 107 5.1 How Neon Lamps Relate to Giant Stars-Element Synthesis in the S-Process 109 5.2 Thorium, Uranium, and R-Process Element Synthesis 114 5.3 Cosmo-Chronometry: The Oldest Stars 120 5.4 Nuclear Astrophysics 128 6 Welcome to Our Milky Way 130 6.1 A Milky Way above Us 130 6.2 The Milky Way's Structure 133 6.3 Dwarf Galaxies 139 6.4 Star Clusters 145 6.5 Naming Stars 151 7 Tales Told by Light 155 7.1 A Little Lexicon of Light 156 7.2 Spectroscopy-Deciphering Starlight 160 7.3 Element Abundance Analyses of Stars 166 7.4 The Largest Telescopes in the World 173 7.5 Three Steps toward Success 180 7.6 Observations with MIKE 186 8 Let's Go Ob serve Some Stars! 192 8.1 Going Stargazing 192 8.2 Good-Weather Beer 197 8.3 A Sunset 198 8.4 The Observa-thon 201 8.5 One Hundred and Five Stars per Night 203 8.6 Computers, Computers ... 205 8.7 Tested by Fire 207 9 The Chemical Evolution of the Early Universe 210 9.1 The First Stars in the Universe 210 9.2 The Family of Metal-Poor Stars 217 9.3 The Most Iron-Poor Stars 222 9.4 The Cosmic Chemical Evolution 227 10 Finding the Oldest Stars 241 10.1 Pursuing Metal-Poor Stars 241 10.2 Bright Metal-Poor Stars 248 10.3 Mt. Stromlo Succumbs to Bushfires 252 10.4 The Discovery of a Record-Breaking Most Iron-Poor Star 257 10.5 The Astronomical Community 264 11 A t the End of a Cosmic Journey 267 11.1 Cosmological Simulations 267 11.2 Where Do Metal-Poor Stars Come From? 273 11.3 Expectations of Future Surveys 279 11.4 The Next Generation of Giant Telescopes 282 11.5 Little Diamonds in the Sky 285 Further Reading 287 Index 289

About the Author

Anna Frebel is the Silverman (1968) Family Career Development Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has received numerous international honors and awards for her discoveries and analyses of the oldest stars. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

"[Anna Frebel] makes this crash course in astronomy accessible to stargazers of all knowledge levels... Woven through the science are personal anecdotes from Frebel, which give the impression of a face-to-face lesson with a favorite professor... Frebel offers a handy learning tool for fledgling astronomers and a fascinating, enjoyable look into her own research."--Publishers Weekly "Frebel's narrative provides a rich picture of the understandings astronomers have gleaned from studying the elements in stars. We are gradually developing a picture of how the elements evolved from the earliest moments of the Big Bang and how these elements were distributed through our Milky Way galaxy, eventually forming the solar system we inhabit today."--Laurence A. Marschall, Natural History "Frebel presents a gripping account of astronomy and the thrill of scientific discovery, making a complex subject accessible to general readers."--Dave Pugl, Library Journal "Edifying, engaging, and ever more reason to be humbled by the starry night, [Searching for the Oldest Stars] is a delight."--Matt Sutherland, Foreword Reviews "One of the glories of astrophysics is the way it combines real-world uselessness with mind-blowing effects on human consciousness. Here, Searching For The Oldest Stars shines. Frebel deals with the evolution of scientific thinking on the nature of the universe, the formation of ideas on how to identify such stars, and the wearisome but hopeful search for individual examples, with real descriptive power... But good popular exposition of specialized knowledge is not that rare--the core of Frebel's book, and the source of its appeal, is the joy it conveys."--Brian Bethune, Maclean's "[Frebel] offers an excellent description of how a scientist approaches and works through a research project and how her cutting-edge project fits into the larger view of modern astronomy. Personal details enliven the narrative, and the topic is accessible even to those who choose not to dive deeply into all chapters."--Choice