Caption

A team of scientists has confirmed that NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be well suited for studying red giant stars with a method known as asteroseismology. This approach entails studying the changes in stars’ overall brightness, which is caused by their turbulent interiors creating waves and oscillations. With asteroseismic detections, astronomers can learn about stars’ ages, masses, and sizes.

Roman’s ability to provide such details about red giant stars harmonizes well with the telescope’s main science goals. As Roman conducts observations for its Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, it will also provide enough data for astronomers to determine stellar measurements via asteroseismology.

Based on their research, the team estimates that Roman will be able to detect a total of 300,000 red giant stars with this method. This would be the largest sample of its kind ever collected.

This artist’s concept of the Sun and several red giant stars of varying radii is derived from a sonification. The sonification, which converts the waves moving inside red giant stars into sound, is based on a simulation of data Roman will collect after its launch.