Dr Dennis Stello (OTY)
University of Sydney
Astrophysics: asteroseismology
Dr Stello studies the sounds of stars, a new field capable of probing the intricate inner workings of stars. The Sun and most other stars experience a continuous rumble from massive internal quakes, making them ring like big vibrating bells in the sky. Each star `plays’ its own particular range of notes, which reveals its size, age, and composition, just like the timbre of instruments in a large orchestra. By following thousands of stars and studying their interior structures he hopes to gain a comprehensive understanding of how stars like our Sun will grow old, leading to a more rigorous understanding of the variations in the Sun’s activity level with direct consequences for human society
Dennis has found great opportunities to communicate his science to the broader community, through numerous public lectures at the Ole Roemer Observatory, the North Sydney Astronomical Society, and frequent invited lectures for high-school students at the Steno Planetarium. He also designed hands-on demonstrations and presented the fascinating physics of the `sounds of the stars’ at the annual High School Teachers Workshop at the University of Sydney and given talks and performed interactive