Bullitt Lecture in Astronomy 2003 - The Life and Death of Stars

Speaker: James Kaler, University of Illinois

Abstract: Stars are not forever. Like anything elese, they are born, live their lives, and die, some quietly, others with awesome violence, both birth and death going on as we watch, stellar life in a continuous cosmic cycle.

James B. (Jim) Kaler, Professor of Astronomy, earned his A.B. at the University of Illinois since 1964. His research area, in which he has published over 100 papers, involves dying stars. Prof. Kaler has held Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships, has been awarded medals for his work from the University of Liege in Belgium and the University of Mexico, and most recently was selected to give the Armand Spitzer lecture by the Great Lakes Planetarium Association. He has written for a variety of popular and semi-popular magazines (including "Astronomy", "Sky and Telescope", and "Scientific American"), was a consultant for Time-Life Books on their Voyage Through the Universe" series, appears frequently on Illinois television and radio, and has produced several books, including "Stars" and "Cosmic Clouds" (Scientific American Library), "The Ever-Changing Sky" (Cambridge), "Astronomy! A Brief Edition" (Addison-Wesley), and the recently published "The Little Book of Stars", "The Hundred Greatest Stars" (both Copernicus), and "Stars at the Edge" (Cambridge). He is a current member of the Board od Directors of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and is a past president of the Board of the Champaign-Urbana Symphony.