Science Colloquium
Helioseismology: Listening to the Music of the Sun
Sylvain Turcotte
Bishop's University
Friday, February 18, 2005
12:00 - 12:50 PM
Hamilton Room 301
The Sun is the closest star to us and its proximity means that we can study it at a level of detail that is not possible with other stars. Understanding the Sun is fundamental to our understanding of the Universe. Until recently it was not possible to know what the Sun was really like underneath its surface. Fortunately, it was discovered that Sun experiences small Sun-quakes that make the Sun ring like a bell. But unlike a bell, the Sun rings in thousands of different tones that each provides a different clue to the overall puzzel as to what makes up the structure of the Sun. Helioseismology is the science that puts these pieces together thus allowing astrophysicists to build a self-consistent picture of the Sun.
In this talk, I will describe how we observe this Sun quakes, how they occur, and what they tell us about the Sun.
