Extragalaxtic Stellar Astronomy

Despite their paucity, massive hot stars are real cosmic engines of fundamental importance in shaping our Universe, from its very early stages up to its current appearance. Understanding the physics of massive stars is then a key issue for many relevant astrophysical phenomena. Probing the massive stellar population of nearby galaxies by means of quantitative spectroscopy allows us to unveil a wealth of information that will aid our current understanding of stellar and galaxy evolution. In addition, blue luminous stars can be used as standard candles for extragalactic distances up to 10 Mpc. In this contribution, we present a brief overview of recent steps we have undertaken in this exciting research field.
Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the conference proceedings "Galaxies in the Local Volume", eds. B.S. Koribalski and H. Jerjen