Conny Aerts on star vibrations and following your dreams

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many of us have heard of seismology, the study of earthquakes; but what about asteroseismology, focusing on vibrations in stars?

Conny Aerts is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Leuven in Belgium - and a champion of this information-rich field of celestial research. Her work has broken new ground in helping to improve our understanding of stars and their structures.

It hasn’t been an easy path: Conny describes herself as always being “something of an outlier” and she had to fight to follow her dream of working in astronomy. But that determination has paid off - today, Conny is involved in numerous interstellar studies collecting data from thousands of stars, and taking asteroseismology to a whole new level.

In an epsiode recorded at the 2024 Cheltenham Science Festival, Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to the pioneering Belgian astrophysicist about her lifelong passion for stars, supporting the next generation of scientists, and her determination to tread her own path.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced by Lucy Taylor

Transcript

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0:52.0	Hello and welcome to the Life Scientific.
0:54.0	Today I'm at the 2024 Cheltenham Science Festival
0:58.0	and more specifically I'm on stage at the Parabola Arts Centre
1:02.0	in front of a very friendly looking audience.
1:04.3	Thank you all for joining us today.
1:06.4	You're in for a stellar episode.
1:08.7	So you might be familiar with seismology, the study of earthquakes, but what about astro seismology, which looks at vibrations
1:16.5	in stars? Well, that's the vast information-rich field of celestial research championed
1:22.2	by my guest today.
1:24.1	Connie Arts is professor of astrophysics at the University of Lervyn in Belgium.
1:28.8	Her work has broken new ground helping to improve our understanding of stars and their structures.
	...

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