Observations of Dying Stars with SOFIA

Researchers at Boston College's ISR presented results from their study of dying stars at the recent Space Telescope 2019 Spring Symposium, The Deaths and Afterlives of Stars. ISR astronomer K. Kraemer and STScI's G. Sloan showed spectra of post-AGB stars, dying stars on their way to becoming planetary nebulae, taken with NASA's airborne telescope SOFIA. These observations may allow us to probe the near real-time evolution of these stars during one of the most fleeting phases of a star's lifetime.