Massive stars play a role in shaping our universe through stellar winds, supernovae explosions and the production of heavy elements. But they also raise questions – questions that Maria Drout, University of Toronto researcher and Canada Research Chair in Time-Domain and Multimessenger Astrophysics, is working to answer.
Dr. Drout and her research team explore the evolution and death of massive stars, the origin of unusual astronomical transients and the physics of stellar explosions. They aim to develop a comprehensive picture of the evolution, influence and ultimate fate of these distant stars.
“Most often, we study the massive stars that end their lives in big cosmic explosions called supernova,” she explains. “We try and understand how stars die, and how objects like black holes and neutron stars are formed.”
Dr. Drout also studies the origins of unusual transient phenomena in space. Her work has garnered here the 2023 Sloan Fellowship.
Her passion for studying the life cycles of massive stars has its roots in undergraduate learning opportunities.
“One summer, I went to the Lowell Observatory in Arizona and was able to undertake a project examining a set of massive stars in nearby galaxies. Then the next summer, I went to the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and did a project on supernova explosions. I then realized there were a lot of opportunities to connect these two fields.”
She says winning the Sloan Fellowship is especially rewarding following the “rough” years of the pandemic, a time she describes as “incredibly isolating” for many researchers. She says it’s encouraging to know that her team’s work is appreciated.
“The pandemic was pretty isolating for a lot of people,” she says. “So this recognition really shows that we managed to push through and get a lot of very cool, impactful research done despite all that.”
The Sloan Fellowship would not have been possible without her “amazing students” and other collaborators, she says.
Dr. Drout was a NASA Hubble postdoctoral fellow at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science from 2016 to 2018.
