Gaia Probe Reveals Stellar DNA and Unexpected 'Starquakes' - Slashdot
source link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/06/13/2317203/gaia-probe-reveals-stellar-dna-and-unexpected-starquakes
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Gaia Probe Reveals Stellar DNA and Unexpected 'Starquakes'
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These measurements unexpectedly revealed thousands of starquakes, cataclysmic tsunami-like events on the surface of stars. "Starquakes teach us a lot about stars -- notably, their internal workings," said Conny Aerts of KU Leuven in Belgium, who is a member of the Gaia collaboration. "Gaia is opening a goldmine for asteroseismology of massive stars." Dr George Seabroke, senior research associate at Mullard space science laboratory at University College London, said: "If you can see these stars changing in brightness halfway across the Milky Way, if you were anywhere near them, it would be like the sun changing shape in front of your eyes." Gaia is fitted with a 1bn pixel camera -- the largest ever in space -- complete with more than 100 electronic detectors. The latest dataset represents the largest chemical map of the galaxy to date, cataloguing the composition of six million stars, ten times the number measured in previous ground-based catalogues.
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