Special Guest Speaker - Sue Knight

Events Calendar

Special Guest Speaker - Sue Knight

Thursday 10 December 2015, 07:30pm - 09:30pm

The Search for Cool Companions Around White Dwarf Stars

Sue Knight

Sue Knight has been a member of SASI since 1998. She was actively involved as the society’s web administrator and Committee member. Sue also arranged the monthly Guest Speaker talks, participated as a volunteer at the annual Open Nights and has written several articles for the society’s journal.

As an Information Technology specialist for many years, Sue decided to change career direction, after attending several astronomy conferences worldwide. She completed studies toward a Bachelor of Science degree at Macquarie University in 2011 and is finalizing the next stage of her studies at Leicester University in the UK. Her research was focused on the search of companions to white dwarf stars in the infrared regime using Spitzer Telescope data.

Sue is an enthusiastic traveller and photographer as well as an avid reader of science fiction novels.

We're looking forward to hear about Sue's research:

The Search for Substellar Common Proper Motion Companions to White Dwarfs

A large sample of white dwarfs within our solar neighbourhood has been examined to search for resolved common proper motion companions. The luminosity of these white dwarfs make them ideal candidates for detecting low mass objects such as brown dwarfs and gas giant planets.

Ultra cool brown dwarfs are particularly interesting due to their scarcity and they provide a crucial link between the colder gas giant planets and hotter T spectral type brown dwarfs.

Furthermore, searching for brown dwarfs can also place constraints on the frequency of planetary systems around white dwarf progenitors. They also offer a unique opportunity to test properties predicted for them by atmospheric models.

I discuss my research and findings on the search for these widely separated companions using data from the Spitzer Telescope data as well the difficulty in distinguishing between brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets to date.

Location Green Point Observatory