Stepping Stones to the Universe: DIRECT Distances to the M31 and the M33 Galaxies

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Stepping stones to the Universe: DIRECT distances to the M31 and the M33 galaxiesDimitar D. SasselovDr. Sasselov is conducting a project called DIRECT. This project uses detached eclipsing binaries and Cepheids to refine the distances to two important galaxies in the cosmological distance ladder. Microlensing searches are now finding detached eclipsing binaries. Dr. Sasselov is extending these searches to include the two main Local Group galaxies visible in the northern sky, M31 and M33. These two nearby galaxies are stepping stones for most of our current efforts to understand the evolving universe at large scales. They are essential to the calibration of the extragalactic distance scale. They constrain population synthesis models for early galaxy formation and evolution and provide the stellar luminosity calibration.