Massive Stars and Where to Find Them

Bolton Lecture in Astronomy. This lecture is open to everyone, including school groups and members of the public.

Massive Stars and Where to Find Them with Dr Anna McLeod

Massive stars are the giants of the cosmos: rare, brilliant, and short-lived. They burn their fuel millions of times faster than our Sun, sculpt galaxies with their winds and explosions, and forge the elements that make planets and people possible. Yet, according to the simplest laws of physics, they shouldn’t exist at all: the force of their own radiation should blow them apart before they ever form.

Dr Anna McLeod will follow these cosmic heavyweights through their fast and furious lives, from their hidden birthplaces inside dusty stellar nurseries, to their brief and blazing reigns as the brightest beacons in the night sky, to their spectacular deaths as supernovae or silent collapses into black holes.

Along the way, we’ll explore how astronomers track them down across the electromagnetic spectrum and across the Universe, from our own Milky Way to galaxies billions of light-years away. Join us on a journey to discover massive stars and where to find them.

About the Bolton Lecture in Astronomy

This annual autumn lecture hosted by the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds aims to share the latest developments in astronomy and particle physics with a broad audience, particularly secondary school students. The series is named in honour of Scriven Bolton (c.1888–1929), a local benefactor whose generous bequest enabled the University to establish a state-of-the-art observatory for teaching practical astronomy to undergraduates.