President Bernie Zelazny called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM in 224 ACR Building on the Sul Ross Campus.  There were 17 people present.
       Dr. Matthew Shetrone, Resident Astronomer with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, gave a program on Cosmic Alchemy (see below).
       The business meeting took place after Matt Shetrone's presentation.  The minutes were accepted as printed in the October Newsletter.  Betty Grimm submitted the following treasurer's report:

        The chemical evolution of the universe is a kind of cosmic alchemy in which elements are transmuted, transformed, into other elements.  This chemical evolution in fact accomplishes one of the goals that the alchemists never reached: the transmutation of baser elements into gold.
        Dr. Shetrone characterized this chemical evolution as a kind of drama, with actors playing roles as characters; and the characters engaging in various actions.  The actors are Protons, Neutrons, Photons, Electrons, and Neutrinos, interacting in various ways.  The characters in our drama are Elements, each having a constant number of Protons; Isotopes, each having a constant number of Neutrons; Fusion, the process of building Elements; and Fission, the process of breaking Elements apart.  The characters then become involved in four actions: (1) Gravity, the mutual attraction resulting in star formation, among other things; (2) EM, the electromagnetic force, responsible for the attraction (and repulsion) of unlike (like) charges or magnetic poles; (3) the Strong Force, which holds the Elements together; and (4) the Weak Force, which holds the actors together, the smaller particles comprising the elements.
        Immediately after the Big Bang, only energy existed in the universe.  As the universe expanded and cooled, some of the energy was transformed into Protons and Electrons, and other actors in our cosmic drama.  Some of these actors then joined in playing the character of hydrogen, and eventually the characters of helium, lithium, and the heavier elements.  These and other characters then gave rise to the actions of gravity and the other forces listed above.
        Clouds of hydrogen gathered here and there as the force of gravity came into being.  Some of these clouds became intensely hot as their density increased, eventually becoming stars, growing  hot enough to burn their hydrogen into helium through fusion.  The fusion process yields energy as well as helium, further raising the temperature of a star.
        The energy of burning hydrogen balances the gravity of the star, so that for a time it neither expands nor contracts.  But when the hydrogen is essentially all burned, the star contracts, raising its temperature to the point where helium fusion begins, yielding lithium and energy.  In a large star, the fusion process goes on creating elements ranging from carbon, through silicon, iron, silver, gold, and uranium.  The star becomes smaller, finally collapses, heats up enormously, and explodes in a Type II supernova, scattering the star's material over a wide region, replicating some aspects of the Big Bang.  Eventually, the ashes of a dead star may be incorporated into clouds of dust that will become new stars and new planets.  There is compelling evidence that our own sun is just such a second-generation star, recycling elements created in earlier stars. 
       Determining the age of a star requires finding its chemical makeup through spectroscopic measurements.  For example, the element thorium has a half-life of about 7 billion years, so measuring the amount of thorium in a star gives an indication of its age.  The oldest stars in our galaxy are in the globular clusters in the halo, and the youngest are in the disk of the galaxy.
        Counterintuitively - to this reporter, anyway - the life of a large star is shorter than the life of a small star.  Some large stars may not last more than a few million years, whereas our Sun is now about 4 1/2 billion years, and may live another 5 billion years.  Because of its modest size, the Sun will not go supernova but will become a red giant, incinerating the earth in the process, eventually becoming a planetary nebula surrounding a white dwarf.  Stay tuned!

If we have not yet received your dues, then please use the convenient envelope addressed to our treasurer that is included with this copy of your Newsletter.

Betty Lou Grimm, Treasurer
Big Bend Astronomical Society, Inc
1001 N 2nd Street, Apt F-22
Alpine, TX 79830