Speaker Name:
Derck Smits
Speaker Affiliation:
UNISA
Talk Subject:
The Interstellar Medium
Date:
05/06/2009 - 13:00
Venue:
LT C, RW James
The medium between the stars contains a mixture of dust and gas in a range of different states. Cold dark clouds of gas and dust, called Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs), are the birthplaces of stars but still hold many secrets regarding the physical processes involved in star-formation. Supernova remnants are hot (T ~ 106 K) expanding shock-fronts that collide with existing clouds, creating huge ubbles of low density regions within the ISM. The physics of nebulae have been studied extensively using photoionization codes such as CLOUDY, and there has been much success in modeling ionized plasmas in the ISM. However, there are still several problems that need to be resolved, and new discoveries that need to be explained.