Fredagskollokvium: New insight into stellar properties from Kepler asteroseismology

NASA's Kepler mission, launched in March 2009, has been remarkably successful in characterizing extra-solar planetary systems. However, in addition thanks to its exquisite photometric precision Kepler has revolutionized our possibilities for studying stellar properties based on asteroseismic analysis of observed stellar oscillations. The results range from characterization of stellar populations in terms of mass, radius and age to detailed investigations of the cores of red-giant stars, and we are only at the beginning of realizing the full potential of the Kepler data. In the talk I plan to give a brief overview of the Kepler mission and discuss some of the asteroseismic results that have been obtained.