Possible Student Projects


These Summer/Winter Research Projects carry a stipend of $450 per week (usually 4-6 weeks long).
More information is on the Scholarships website and other projects are listed on the School of Physics and Astronomy site.

1. Weighing stars and detecting planets with space telescope data


In this project you will learn about the main method for detecting planets -- measuring the light 'dip' that occurs when a planet passes in front of its host star. Working with real data from the Kepler space telescope you will construct light curves of known planet-hosting stars using an existing computer code.

The extremely precise brightness data from the space telescopes can also be used to study the vibrations of the stars. Much like seismology on Earth, we can infer properties of the stars themselves using these oscillations. In the second part of the project you will determine the masses of some stars using this method, known as asteroseismology. If time permits you will also make measurements using our new Kepler data of stars in a star cluster, which will hopefully result in a journal publication (on a longer timescale).

2. What are stars made of? Deciphering the chemical composition of red giant stars with Australian telescope data


In this project you will learn how scientists use starlight to determine what stars are made of.

Using a computer code developed at Monash, and real data that we have collected using the largest optical telescope in Australia, you will determine the chemical composition of some giant red stars in at least one star cluster using stellar spectroscopy. If time permits this will lead to a publication of an article in a science journal.