{"id":7238,"date":"2025-03-08T18:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T23:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/?p=7238"},"modified":"2025-03-09T08:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T12:27:07","slug":"to-catch-a-dying-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/2025\/03\/08\/to-catch-a-dying-star\/","title":{"rendered":"To catch a dying star"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Join me for a series of posts that explores the development of the material for my public lecture on Thursday, March 14, entitled <strong>&#8220;Catch a Dying Star: Astronomy Deep Underground&#8221;<\/strong>. Today, I explore the origin of the title and the material that is the rough foundation of the lecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The title\u2019s origin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The astronomer, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Donald_D._Clayton\">Donald D. Clayton<\/a>, is one of the most famous students from my former physics department at Southern Methodist University. He graduated from SMU in 1956 and went on to a famed career in astronomy. You can read about his accomplishments from his WIkipedia page. When I was a tenured professor at SMU, I accidentally discovered his autobiography while searching for information about a former faculty member, Frank C. McDonald. McDonald was department chair when Clayton was an undergraduate. He gave Clayton his first university research job, a story recounted in the biography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clayton&#8217;s life story was entitled<strong> &#8220;Catch a Falling Star<\/strong>&#8220;<strong>,<\/strong> and I always liked the way that title felt. Clearly, the author was both an impressive astronomer and a fan of music (see Perry Como) and double meanings. I recently &#8220;crossed paths&#8221; again with Clayton when my current PhD student showed me a book he was using as a reference. That turned out to be Clayton&#8217;s 1968 <em>Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis<\/em>. I was so captivated by Clayton&#8217;s career and his tales of life at SMU that I devoted an episode of my short-lived pandemic podcast, &#8220;Uncertainty Principles&#8221;, to a reading from his biography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-wp-embed is-provider-peertube wp-block-embed-peertube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" title=\"Uncertainty Principle Podcast Episode 2: The Uncertain Road  (March 19, 2020)\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/media.cooleysekula.net\/videos\/embed\/b5893624-0dee-4f8c-8ee0-c71dd915abe0#?secret=Bre2u55aXK\" data-secret=\"Bre2u55aXK\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Catch a Dying Star&#8221; is an homage to Clayton, my connection to him through my past at SMU, and the fact that he was such a successful astronomer that I keep running into him (now through my own students). I had wanted to host him for a special lecture at SMU in 2021 or 2022, but was never able to get ahold of him. I learned recently he passed away in 2024, and I am sorry I never had a chance to meet or thank him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The lecture story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The lecture this coming Thursday will tell the tale of a star that died spectacularly, long ago, and what happened when the first pieces of that explosion reached Earth. I put down the roots of this lecture last year when I delivered a colloquium at Siena College on this subject. That talk was aimed at a broad <em>university<\/em> audience, and it must be transformed into something more elegant and sweeping to become the public lecture this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ll talk more about that transformation as the week progresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About the Lecture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Catch a Dying Star: Astronomy Deep Underground&#8221; will be delivered at the Sanford Underground Research Facility&#8217;s visitor centre on Thursday, March 14 from 5-7pm (the event includes the talk, time for questions and discussion, and a reception).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"992\" height=\"519\" src=\"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Deep-Talks-March-13-2025.png-1.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7229\" srcset=\"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Deep-Talks-March-13-2025.png-1.webp 992w, https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Deep-Talks-March-13-2025.png-1-300x157.webp 300w, https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Deep-Talks-March-13-2025.png-1-768x402.webp 768w, https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Deep-Talks-March-13-2025.png-1-640x335.webp 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 992px) 100vw, 992px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Learn more:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackhillsbadlands.com\/events\/catch-dying-star-astronomy-deep-underground\">https:\/\/www.blackhillsbadlands.com\/events\/catch-dying-star-astronomy-deep-underground<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Join me for a series of posts that explores the development of the material for my public lecture on Thursday, March 14, entitled &#8220;Catch a Dying Star: Astronomy Deep Underground&#8221;. Today, I explore the origin of the title and the material that is the rough foundation of the lecture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[88,32,233,27,56,328],"class_list":{"0":"post-7238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"category-science","9":"tag-astrophysics","10":"tag-history","11":"tag-neutrino","12":"tag-physics-2","13":"tag-science-2","14":"tag-supernova","15":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Deep-Talks-March-13-2025.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7279,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7238\/revisions\/7279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}