From Mica
The Stars in a Galaxy
We now know that most of the mass of a typical galaxy is Dark Matter. But, when you look at an image of a galaxy in optical or near-infrared light, the light you're seeing comes from the stars. It turns out, however, that the stars that are responsible for most of the light you see are not representative! Most of the stars in a galaxy, and indeed most of the stellar mass of a galaxy, aren't the ones emitting the light that you see in a typical image. In this talk, I'll describe what we know about the kinds of stars that one finds in a typical galaxy. How typical is the Sun? What *are* the stars that we're mostly seeing when we look at a galaxy? And what makes up most of the stars in a galaxy?
Media
Slides (PDF format)
Audio Recording not available