Crafoord Prize in Astronomy laureates Announced!
This year’s Crafoord Prize in Astronomy is awarded to Douglas Gough, Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard and Conny Aerts for their development of methods that allow us to “see” the insides of stars and the Sun.
Similar to how seismology is used to learn about the insides of the Earth, astroseismology can be used in order to gain an understanding of the
interior of the Sun and stars work through studying the movements on their surfaces caused by internal oscillations. The surface movements are an important key in order to unlock the mysteries of the structure and rotation of stars’, as well as the history of the Milky Way.
The movements of the inside of the Sun can indirectly be observed by studying oscillations on the surface. Using continuous observations of the surface oscillations of the Sun, Douglas Gough and Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard could determine the temperature in the solar interior and how the plasma behaves inside the Sun and how energy is transported from the solar core out to its surface.
Conny Aerts used similar methods in order to gain further insight of how distans stars work. This is not an easy task as we cannot observe stars that are far away at the same resolution as the Sun, since they only appear as tiny dots on the night sky. Conny Aerts developed a method to observe the oscillation of faraway stars using new space telescopes. By studying the changes in brightness of stars, the sizes, ages and evolutionary phases of stars can be determined. In addition, this can be used in exoplanet research. All of this helps astronomers to better understand the stars, galaxies and galaxy formation.
Dan Kiselman and Karin Lind are researchers at the Department of Astronomy, and they explain the importance of the work of the laureates in this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FOyH1ylIbGI
Last updated: February 7, 2024
Source: Department of astronomy