Starburst and Galaxy Evolution Stars are the fundamental building blocks of galaxies.
Stars evolve - and so do galaxies.
Comparison between observations and models of evolving stellar populations helps understand the star formation process, triggering mechanisms, influence of the environment, the chemical history, and processes in the interstellar gas. Our research concentrates on galaxies with active current star formation. Scaled-down versions of starbursts are found in the Local Group of galaxies, like 30 Doradus in the LMC , but prototypical starbursts are farther away. We are quite excited about the recent detection of star-forming galaxy candidates at cosmological distances. Most of our data are taken by HST , which is the premier instrument to collect observations at high spatial resolution, in particular in the ultraviolet.