Kepler satellite discovers variability in the Seven Sisters
http://www.ras.org.uk/...-and-press/3038-kepler-satellite-discovers-variability-in-the-seven-sisters
The Seven Sisters, as they were known to the ancient Greeks, are now known to modern astronomers as the Pleiades star cluster –
a set of stars which are visible to the naked eye and have been studied for thousands of years by cultures all over the world.
Now Dr Tim White of the Stellar Astrophysics Centre at Aarhus University and his team of Danish and international astronomers
have demonstrated a powerful new technique for observing stars such as these, which are ordinarily far too bright to look at
with high performance telescopes. Their work is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Using a new algorithm to enhance observations from the Kepler Space Telescope in its K2 Mission, the team has performed
the most detailed study yet of the variability of these stars. Satellites such as Kepler are engineered to search for planets
orbiting distant stars by looking for the dip in brightness as the planets pass in front, and also to do asteroseismology,
studying the structure and evolution of stars as revealed by changes in their brightness.
structure and evolution of stars as revealed by changes in their brightness.
