Presentation: Anna O'Grady, PhD- “A Buddy for Betelgeuse: Looking for the companion to our nearest big neighbor”
Abstract: Betelgeuse, the closest Red Supergiant to Earth, is one of
the most observed stars in the sky. Recent work has suggested that
Betelgeuse has a previously unseen companion — a “buddy” around the
size of our Sun. I'll describe the works that uncovered the clues of
the companion’s existence, and follow-up work aimed at attempting to
directly detect this companion.
Anna O’Grady is a McWilliams postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She completed her PhD in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and her BSc in physics and applied math at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Anna’s research involves observations of stellar populations in nearby galaxies, and uses those observations to put constraints on rare or unknown classes of massive stars.