Exploitation of Space Missions and New Technologies in Asteroseismology Investigador responsável While stars are the fundamental components of the universe, they are also the laboratory where chemical elements are formed. So their understanding is indispensable for all astrophysical disciplines, while it also helps improve our understanding of physical laws and phenomena under extreme conditions. However, the main difficulty in studying stars is their distances from us and the impossibility to probe their interiors. Similarly to terrestrial seismology, asteroseismology, a new branch of astrophysics, makes use of the observed oscillation frequencies, providing a unique way to probe stellar interiors. This makes it possible to study stellar structure, evolution and physical processes at play in stars. Recently two space missions have been launched that will benefit asteroseismology: CoRoT (CNES, ESA) and Kepler (NASA). In these missions, both CAUP in Porto ana IAA in Granada teams are directly or indirectly participating. They have worked on the preparation of the missions and will participate in the data interpretation. The teams are complementary because they are experts in different variable stars types showing the same range of mass. The proposed project has the following objectives: Instituição financiadora Início: 1 janeiro 2010 |