Project Tricycle: Spotting Stars that Wheel and Spin

Advisors: John Lurie, Professor Suzanne Hawley, and Kolby Weisenberger

Description: Stars are the fundamental building blocks of galaxies. They emit enormous amounts of energy and produce all of the elements beyond hydrogen and helium, not to mention hosting planets. Determining the fundamental properties of stars — such as their masses, diameters and ages — is a major goal for astronomers. An eclipsing binary is a system of two stars that orbit each other, periodically passing in front of one another as seen from the Earth. The special nature of such systems allows us to determine the stars’ masses and diameters. Furthermore, many stars have spots like those on the Sun. From the spots we can measure how fast the stars are rotating, which tells us about their ages and magnetic fields.

Students will analyze data from the Kepler spacecraft, looking for systems with three distinct cycles, or periods: one due to the binary orbit, and two more due to the rotation of spots on each star. Students will also produce simulations to better understand what types of systems can be detected. Ultimately, the results will help expand our understanding of how stars work.

Project Skills: Basic familiarity with core Python packages, e.g. NumPy, matplotlib. Can commit changes to code with git and push to GitHub