I am currently attending the workshop "the Future of Asteroseismology" in Vienna, Austria. Around 120 astronomers, mainly interested in pulsating stars, are here for three days. The most recent results on various classes of variable stars have been presented during the past days from quakes in the helium rich atmospheres of white dwarfs to 5-minute solar-like oscillations in "normal" (=G-type MS) stars.

This afternoon I presented results from the star tracker on the WIRE satellite. The high-precision photometry from WIRE has been used to probe delta scuti stars (about twice the mass of the sun) and more recently to take the measure of the size and masses of stars in detached eclipsing binaries. Some of the stars in these binary systems are also pulsating (ie. essentially "star quakes") which can in principle be used measure what goes on inside the stars.

The future of asteroseismology will be exciting. New space missions like COROT (launch in December 2006) and Kepler (October 2008?) will reveal unprecedented details on the interior of the stars.

1. Heather03-10-2006 15:58:34

Cool, almost as much fun as the pictures (which are much better than you both think)... So you should post your PPT (or -- what did you use to present your results??)

Your fans are waiting!

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