Astronomy conference at UW to explore the sun and other cool stars
For many people, all stars are "cool." But the 350 or so astronomers gathering for the Cool Stars 16 conference at the University of Washington next week are interested in stars such as our sun with surface temperatures of 5,700 degrees Celsius or less, compared to more than 30,000 degrees for the hottest stars. Astronomers classify stars in seven letter categories. Cool stars are classified as G, which includes yellow stars like the sun, and two classes that are cooler still -- K (orange) and M (red). Cool stars make up more than 70 percent of the stars in our galaxy, but interest in them waned in the 1970s and '80s, when it was thought that they were well understood, said Suzanne Hawley, who heads the UW astronomy department and the scientific organizing committee for the conference. Science sessions for the "16th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun" begin Sunday, Aug. 29, and conclude Thursday, Sept. 2. Read more