Visiting Professor Zack Maas has been interviewed by the AAS Journal Author Series for his recent paper
The Galactic Distribution of Phosphorus: A Survey of 163 Disk and Halo Stars
in collaboration with Keith Hawkins, Natalie Hinkel, Phillip Cargile, IU alumnus Steven Janowiecki, and Tyler Nelson. Zack describes his work to establish the abundance of phosphorus, an element critical for life. The team measured abundances for 163 solar-type stars using observations from the Habitable-zone Planet Finder instrument on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope to see how the abundance of P has changed as metallicity has increased in the galaxy. They found that P is probably mostly produced by massive stars in core-collapse supernovae, based on correlations with the abundances of other elements, including alpha elements, iron peak elements, odd-Z elements and s-process elements.
Check out the video on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O7zAFr0TRw
The College of Arts