MESA-Web: A cloud resource for stellar evolution in astronomy curricula

TL;DR

MESA-Web is an accessible cloud platform enabling students and researchers to simulate stellar evolution models online, enhancing astronomy education and scientific investigation without complex software installation.

Contribution

It introduces new features to MESA-Web, including user-supplied nuclear reaction rates and expanded input options, and fosters community sharing through a dedicated hub.

Findings

Over 17,000 calculations performed since 2015

Used by more than 2,200 learners globally

Supports educational and research applications

Abstract

We present MESA-Web, a cloud resource with an online interface to the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) software instrument. MESA-Web allows learners to evolve stellar models without the need to download and install MESA. Since being released in 2015, MESA-Web has delivered over 17,000 calculations to over 2,200 unique learners and currently performs about 11 jobs per day. MESA-Web can be used as an educational tool for stars in the classroom or for scientific investigations. We report on new capabilities of MESA-Web introduced since its 2015 release including learner-supplied nuclear reaction rates, custom stopping conditions, and an expanded selection of input parameters. To foster collaboration we have created a Zenodo MESA-Web community hub where instructors can openly share examples of using MESA-Web in the classroom. We discuss two examples in the current community hub. The first example is a lesson module on Red Giant Branch stars that includes a suite of exercises designed to fit a range of learners and a Jupyter workbook for additional analysis. The second example is lesson materials for an upper-level Astronomy majors course in Stars and Radiation that includes an assignment verifying some of the expected trends that are presented in a popular stellar physics textbook.