Promoting Collaboration between Gemini and Korea

The group of astronomers finished the workshop with a visit to the Gemini South telescope located on Cerro Pachón. Photo courtesy of Seok-Jun Chang.

Around 60 scientists from all around the world, gathered in the joint Chile-Korea-Gemini workshop on “Accretion Processes
 in Symbiotic Stars and Related Objects“, on December 4-7 at Universidad de La Serena, in Chile.

In recent years, the Chilean and Korean astronomical communities have begun a path of collaboration that will bring them closer despite the great geographical distance between both countries. Therefore, astronomers based at both sides of the Pacific are fostering several official initiatives to improve partnerships in many aspects of astronomical research among different working groups.

During the inaugural workshop, participants discussed the process of accretion (the growth of a body by the aggregation of matter to smaller bodies) in symbiotic stars ( a system composed of two stars: a red giant and a small white dwarf star, which are surrounded by a nebula), with the aims of future joint projects in stellar astrophysics.

The workshop concluded with a visit to the Gemini-South Telescope, in Cerro Pachón, where participants interacted with the observatory staff to learn more about the engineering and technologies that go on “behind the scenes”.

The organization of this successful meeting was led by astronomers Rodolfo Angeloni (Gemini South) and Hee-Won Lee (Sejong University) and the event was funded by the Gemini Observatory and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).