Staff information
Prof Philip Dufton
Astrophysics Research Centreemail: p.dufton@qub.ac.uk
Tel: 028 9097 3552
Fax: 028 9097 3110
Room S3030
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Queen's University Belfast
University Road
Belfast BT7 1NN
I teach in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and am still trying to undertake research principally in the area of hot stars. These are stars with surface temperatures of about 20,000K and have a blue appearance - examples are the stars in Orion's belt. They are upto 1,000,000 times brighter than the sun with masses typically 20 times that of the sun. Hence they burn their nuclear fuels quickly and have very short lifetimes of typically a few million years. Because they are so intrinsically bright they can be seen at great distances - hence they are useful for understanding the structure of our own Galaxy and of external galaxies.
