Aided with 11 simultaneously running computers, a super-fast ethernet connection and two state-of-the-art, 150-gigabyte disk arrays to store their data, University astronomers are on the leading edge of stellar research.

But technology isn’t always enough.

It also helps to receive a recent $469,824 grant from NASA and the National Science Foundation, most of which astronomy professor Peter Hauschildt said will pay the salaries of his projects’ scientists.

Hauschildt and his team analyze stellar atmospheres using a computer program called PHOENIX, which can model a star’s emissions. From these emissions, Hauschildt said he can discover many facts about a star, such as its temperature.

"Our group is a world leader in modeling these stars," he said. "And this field is very competitive."

NASA funds Hauschildt on his program to study stellar winds coming off of "hot" stars — stars ranging from 35,000 to 90,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Hot stars are dying stars, which lose much of their mass through these winds. Hauschildt said his stellar wind research is showing scientists around the world how these stars lose mass.

In contrast, the sun is a "cool" star, which burns at about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The National Science Foundation funds his NSTARS program, which analyzes nearby cool stars. His team studies energy given off by M, L and T-class stars. The class shows the difference of temperature among stars, with T-class being the coolest.

He said this research helps scientists to better understand the compositions of stars.

Hauschildt said the L classification is less than a year old, and that little is known about these stars, most of which are red in color.

In fact, he said L and T "stars" aren’t considered stars at all, but rather sub-stellar objects or dwarfs because they are so small and cool.

"They are actually in a transition regime to becoming a planet," Hauschildt said.

He said these stars attract interstellar dust, which obscures his infrared readings.

"The L-dwarfs become so cool that they become dusty," he said.

T-class dwarfs are objects which have a temperature below 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit.

"These objects are so cool that they have methane," he said. "Our Jupiter would look like a T- dwarf if it was 50 times more massive."

The team also studies supernovas — exploding stars. He said by studying supernovas, scientists can measure how fast the cosmos is expanding.

"We have found that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, which is very unexpected," he said. "It just gets faster and faster. The physics isn’t even understood."

He said people shouldn’t worry about the universe retracting — a theory known as the "Big Crunch" — anytime soon.

"To our models, it will accelerate forever," he said.

Andreas Schweitzer, a post-doctorate from Heidelberg, Germany, said he enjoys his work. He develops code for PHOENIX, analyzes emissions from stars and performs various other tasks.

"This research is pretty new," Schweitzer said. "I like stellar astrophysics and computers. It’s a perfect combo."