RSAA Colloquia / Seminars / Feast-of-Facts: Tuesday, 14 April 2015, 11:00-12:00; Duffield Lecture Theatre


Daniel Huber

"The Space Photometry Revolution of Asteroseismology & Exoplanets"

Asteroseismology - the study of stellar oscillations - is a powerful tool to probe the structure and evolution of stars. In addition to the large number of newly discovered exoplanets, space-based telescopes such as Kepler have revolutionized asteroseismology by detecting oscillations in thousands of stars from the main sequence to the red-giant branch. In this talk I will highlight recent asteroseismic discoveries by Kepler, focusing in particular on exoplanet host stars. I will furthermore discuss current efforts to improve fundamental properties of the Kepler parent sample and their importance for deriving accurate planet occurrence rates. Finally I will present first asteroseismic results by Kepler’s follow-up mission, K2, and discuss its synergy with the GALAH survey for probing the chemo-dynamical evolution of stellar populations in our Galaxy (galactic archeology).