Sally Oey

Sally Oey is an astronomer at the University of Michigan and an expert in massive, hot stars which are often precursors to supernovae. In 1999, she was awarded the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy by the American Astronomical Society (AAS)[1] and in 2006 was invited to give an address to the 206th meeting of the AAS.

Dr. Oey is currently a Professor[2] and is a member of the board of the Gemini Observatory. From 2001-2004 she was an assistant astronomer at the Lowell Observatory. From 1998-2001 she worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Oey's research group, Feedback Activity in Nearby Galaxies (FANG), focuses on massive star feedback to the interstellar and intergalactic medium, on a local, global, and cosmic scale. These feedbacks include:

  • Radiative feedback: HII regions, Lyman continuum-emitting galaxies
  • Chemical feedback: Enrichment processes and galactic chemical evolution
  • Kinematic feedback: Supernova-driven superbubbles and galactic superwinds
  • Massive star and clusters[3]

Finding no star bigger than 200 solar masses, Oey and her colleagues at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor have found evidence for a size limit in a survey of other clusters within our galaxy and in the nearby satellite galaxy, Magellanic clouds. "It is not clear whether the size is limited by the physics of star formation or by the size of the parent gas cloud. Larger stars, perhaps of up to 500 solar masses, may have existed in the early universe" Oey says.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy". American Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 2010-11-19. Retrieved 2011-05-05.
  2. ↑ Faculty listing Archived 2007-10-19 at the Wayback Machine., U. Mich. Astronomy, retrieved 2011-05-05.
  3. ↑ "Welcome to FANG!". Retrieved 2016-12-05.
  4. ↑ Anonymous (2005-12-02). "No place today for megastars". New Scientist. Retrieved 2016-12-05 – via ProQuest.


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