How Do We Observe Star Formation

Making sense out of what we see.

The emergent spectral energy distribution (SED) of young stars changes drastically as they evolve. We are starting to put together a detailed picture of the observed properties of the stars culled from both observations and advances in theory in the last few decades. The detailed SEDs help us decide which wavelength region, or combination of wavelength regions, is best suited for each phase. However, we have to be mindful of the role of environment, which can significantly affect the emergent light from the young stars or protostars.

Observational astronomers use various diagnostics -- metrics -- to help them disentangle and interpret the observations. For this project, we will rely mostly on photometry diagnostics.

External links:

Luisa's primer for C-WAYS

A NITARP primer on color-magnitude plots

Learning points

• How does the emergent spectral energy distribution change for stars as they evolve in the earliest stages of their evolution?
• What is the advantage gained by near-infrared? sub-mm? radio?
• What do we observe in the optical with ground and space-based telescopes?
• "Short" vs "Long" lived stages (or phases) of evolution. How do we use number statistics to tell one? What are observational biases that could affect these number statistics.