Sharjah 24: The University of Sharjah (UOS) in collaboration with the Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences and Technology (SAASST), granted a master’s degree to the researcher Fatima Al-khateri, Scientific Guide at the Planetarium and Exhibitions, SAASST, who became the first female Emirati student to receive a Master Degree in Astronomy, Space Sciences for her thesis defence: “Spectral classification of selected stellar X-ray sources in the Small Magellanic Cloud”.
The examining committee was chaired by the coordinator of the programme Prof. Mashhoor Al-Wardat, Professor of Astrophysics, as well as Prof. Ilias Fernini, Director of Space Sciences Department, SAASST, Prof. Andreas Zezas from the University of Crete and Institute of Astronomy at the Foundation of Research and Technology, Greece, and Dr. Antonios Manousakis, Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Physics, and Astronomy and Supervisor of the thesis.
Prof. Mashhoor Al-Wardat stressed that the programme is the first of its kind in the United Arab Emirates and it was approved by the Ministry of Education three years ago, in implementation of the vision of His Highness Ruler of Sharjah, pointing out that the programme aims to prepare highly qualified human cadres capable of advancing in astronomy and space sciences projects adopted by the UAE as part of its strategic plan in this field.
Fatima Alkhateri presented a spectral classification of several X-ray sources in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), that are selected with Chandra X-ray Observatory, pointing out that the project is evident in the ability to obtain sufficient statistics in different regions of the SMC, in order to establish and compare the donor-mass distribution in various populations for the very first time.
She added:” We follow up a spectroscopic campaign with the Visible Multi-Object Spectrograph (VIMOS) instrument on the 8.2m Very large Telescope (VLT) telescope of the European South- ern Observatory (ESO) in Chile. This allows us to identify and characterize the optical counterpart of the Be X-ray Binaries (Be-XRBs) population through a conducted survey of representative regions of the SMC and X-ray luminosities down to ∼ 4 × 10^32 erg/s. Consequently, the most complete census of BeXRBs outside our Galaxy in regions with different star-formation histories will be obtained. As a result, the spectral type of the donor stars along with the mass distribution in these systems within the SMC will be determined.”
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