Astronomer wins prestigious Francqui Prize

Conny Aerts, a professor at the University of Leuven can determine the exact lifespan, internal structure and mass of stars with unprecedented precision. Therefore she has won the prestigious 2012 Francqui Prize, an award which was established in 1933. Based on the vibrations emitted by stars, Aerts studies the inner part of stars at a distance of thousands of light years from the earth. To translate these vibrations into data about the star, she developed theoretic models that are constantly measured against reality. The actual vibrational frequencies are determined by the internal qualities of the star. Her method further makes it possible to determine the age of the star. The age of the universe is currently estimated to be 14.8 billion years. The results of her research are extremely accurate and give a relatively precise image of the nucleus of the star. The data on which she bases her research come from observatories from around the globe and increasingly from satellites, which can make more reliable recordings of the vibrations. Telescopic studies are spread over long periods to measure every single inaccuracy or variation in the vibrations. Finally the data are tested against mathematical statistical models. Aerts, who is a mathematician, previously worked for the European Space Agency and NASA, and was a member of the Gaia Science Team which advised ESA.