A University of Tampa professor and her students now have the opportunity to study massive stars using three telescopes far from campus.
They will remotely operate telescopes in Arizona, Chile, and Spain.
UT was awarded 210,000 dollars from the National Science Foundation to support the research project of physics professor, Katie Gordon.
The funds will help UT join The Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy which grants them access to remote telescopes.
“This is a way to test the models because I can directly observe the sizes of the stars instead of relying on a model. And then I can compare that to what the model predicts,” Gordon said.
They will combine observations from several telescopes to get precise measures of the size and temperatures of the stars.
Gordon’s students will be able to do “hands-on astronomical observing” and research projects.
