Did you know that stars like our Sun also have an atmosphere? Part of its surface structure and the only one visible, including the solar corona among its components, the outermost layer that can only be seen during total solar eclipses.
Now thanks to a new tool developed by scientists from the Center for Astrophysics and Related Technologies (CATA) belonging to the University of Chile and the Diego Portales University, scientists will easily be able to study the atmospheres of other stars in the galaxy.
It’s about a open source program called ARIADNE (“Spectral power distribution fitter using Bayesian averaging of models”), capable of modeling star atmospheres automatically, a technique that had not been widely used until now in astronomy, but has been heavily used in areas such as climatology.
The technique will not only make it possible to study stars where planetary systems have been discovered, it also has potential for application in areas such as medicine and the social sciences.
The investigation, the results of which were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societybegan to be developed in 2019 by José Vines, a student of the Doctorate in Sciences mention Astronomy at the University of Chile and main author of the work, with the collaboration of the astronomer of the Diego Portales University, James Jenkins, who helped refine the interpretation of the results.
“It simply came to our notice then makes it possible to obtain very important stellar parameters such as the temperature of the star, the distance to which it is, the size, among others, all with a very high precision”, explains Vines.
ARIADNE will also provide in-depth knowledge of details such as the evolution of a star, information that is essential for the study of exoplanets discovered in other solar systems. “With this tool we will be able to carry out a uniform analysis of the stars, especially those where we have already found planets. It may also be useful in theoretical astrophysics, to develop and refine models of star atmospheres”, adds Vines.
The research also concludes that the statistical technique used could have potential use in different areas and industries, such as social sciences or medicine.
In the latter case, for example, the model would make it possible to link a health problem, such as infectious outbreaks, with other external variables that can affect its spread, beyond the medical characteristics of a disease that facilitate its transmission.