Radio Stars: Trailing Red Giants

Trailing Red Giants Icon
As they near the end of their lives, stars like the Sun eventually deplete the supply of nuclear fuel in their cores. At this point, the outer layers expand and cool, until the star swells to as much as a hundred times its original size. Such stars are known as "red giants".

Red giants are rampant cosmic polluters, spewing large amounts of matter into space. In this podcast, learn how recent radio wavelength observations are leading to new insights into this process, including the discovery that some red giants are trailed by previously invisible wakes of debris up to several light years long!
Financial support for Radio Stars Podcast 1 ("Trailing Red Giants") was provided by an award from the National Science Foundation to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Principal Investigator: Lynn Matthews
Executive Producer: Alex Griswold
Written by: Molly Wasser and Lynn Matthews
Additional script input: Alex Griswold
Recording and sound editing: Molly Wasser
Narrator: Ari Epstein
Additional audio content: Clive Grainger, Lynn Matthews