Conny Aerts

KU Leuven

Research field

Asteroseismology and stellar interiors

Conny Aerts studies the interiors of stars through their oscillations, the same idea that helioseismology applies to the Sun. Her review of a decade of space photometry shows that stars rotate almost rigidly while they burn hydrogen and that the cores of red giants spin far more slowly than stellar models had predicted. The unit uses this work to show how the seismic methods developed for the Sun now test the physics of other stars.

In the masterclass

Section 4 introduces helioseismology, and the spotlight that follows it shows what the same method has revealed about rotation inside other stars.

The research is presented in Unit 6: The Sun and the Properties of Stars, in a research spotlight box that explains the result at the level of the unit and links it to the physics you have just learned.

The paper

Probing the interior physics of stars through asteroseismology