DECEMBER  2020 - TOPICS

Brief News The 2021 "Best PhD thesis Prize - Emilios Harlaftis" Monthly Colloquium of HelAS IAU PhD prize and new member applications Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. Brief News

We would like to congratulate Dr. John Antoniadis, who was recently elected to a Researcher C' position at the Institute of Astrophysics - FORTH. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. We would like to congratulate the member of our Society Dr. Yannis Zouganelis, Deputy Project Scientist for the Solar Orbiter mission of ESA, who was recently nominated as Head of the ESA Science Research Fellowship Programme. This competitive postdoctoral programme offers young scientists the opportunity to carry out research in astrophysics, planetary science, heliophysics and fundamental physics for a duration of up to 3 years in one of the ESA science centres (ESTEC in the Netherlands, ESAC in Spain) or at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA. We would like to congratulate Dr. Alexandros Maragkoudakis who recently moved from the Western University to a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow position at the NASA/Ames Research Center. The Society extends its best wishes for further success in his professional pursuits. The Society would like to remind and alert its Junior Members of the upcoming December 15 deadline for grant support for the first part of 2021. Due to the pandemic many international conferences are held virtually through the web. The Governing Council encourages the junior members of the Society to consider participating in this type of conferences to present their scientific results and request from the Society financial support for the registration fees. All members are encouraged to review the minutes of the monthly meetings of the Governing Council. They are available as PDF files at the bottom of this page.

2. The 2021 "Best PhD thesis Prize - Emilios Harlaftis"

We would like to remind all our members that applications for the "2021 Best PhD thesis Prize - Emilios Harlaftis" are now open. They are restricted to Junior members of the Society, who have successfully defended their Ph.D. thesis between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2020. The application deadline is January 31, 2021. Additional information is available here. Please consider nominating all recent PhDs whose work you consider of high quality.

3. Monthly Colloquium of HelAS

We are happy to announce that the December colloquium speaker is Prof. Manos Chatzopoulos. Details of his colloquium follow: 2nd Monthly Colloquium of HelAS - 8 December 2020 "Is Betelgeuse the Outcome of a Past Merger?" by Prof. Manos Chatzopoulos (Louisiana State University, USA) Tuesday, 8 December 2020 at 18:00 Click for ZOOM link (Meeting ID: 996 8552 3101 and Passcode: 650373) Abstract:Betelgeuse (also known as alpha Orionis) is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable stars in the northern sky. A number of detailed observations over the years have unveiled that Betelgeuse possesses some very interesting physical properties for more reasons other than the fact that it is a nearby evolved, red supergiant massive star (RSG) nearing the end of its life (that would be marked by a brilliant nearby supernova explosion). More specifically, of great interest are the findings that (a): Betelgeuse's surface rotation is more rapid than that anticipated for RSG stars based on single stellar evolution and (b): Betelgeuse is a borderline runaway star, speeding through interstellar space with ~ 30 km/s. In addition, its a known variable star and its latest dimming event motivated vigorous scientific debate. I will discuss our recent result that Betelgeuse may in fact be the post-merger remnant of an once high-mass ratio binary star system that merged as an idea that can explain both its rapid surface rotation and runaway nature and discuss implications.

4. IAU  PhD prize and new member applications

Each Division of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has, once a year, the opportunity to award its own prize to the best candidate of the previous year (i.e. a PhD Thesis which has been defended between the 16 December in the previous year, and 15 December this year). The deadline for applications for the 2020 IAU PhD Prize will be the 15th December. The application form is available here. More info on the conditions of the applications are available here . IAU individual or junior membership: Candidates must have completed their PhD studies in any field of astronomy between 2015 and 2020. Deadline for application this year is December 15, 2020. Further information is found here .

5. Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece

Workshop on "Non-extensive statistical mechanics and kappa distributions" 12-16 July 2021, Chania, Island of Crete Alvio@80 Conference in honor of Alvio Renzini 5-10 September 2021, Kolymbari, Island of Crete

6. About this Newsletter

This Newsletter was sent to all members of Hel.A.S. who have e-mail access. The next edition of the Newsletter will be mailed around January 1, 2021.  Please send your announcements (e.g., appointments / departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before December 25, 2021. If you do not wish to receive future issues of this Newsletter or the e-mail address to which it was sent is not your preferred one, please inform the Secretary of Hel.A.S. at secretary@helas.gr.