Credit: Branco Weiss Fellowship
Shaking stars to their cores
Benard Nsamba receives prestigious fellowship to study stars and inspire Ugandan students
For up to five years, MPA scientist Dr. Benard Nsamba will receive the prestigious Branco Weiss Fellowship awarded by the ETH Zurich. In his research, he will combine stellar models with photometric and astroseismology observations of stars to explore the impact of stellar interior physics on the nature and sizes of stellar cores. In addition, he is planning to use astronomy to stimulate the interest of Ugandan students in science.
Oct. 01, 2021
PhD::SPACE student wins Humboldt fellowship
Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA) researcher Benard Nsamba was awarded a prestigious individual fellowship, worth 100 000€, attributed by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation, to be hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) in Garching, Germany.
Nov. 08, 2019
New asteroseismic modelling tool provides crucial stellar parameters
AIMS (Asteroseismic Inference on a Massive Scale), like other asteroseismic inference tools, matches model parameters to observed individual oscillation frequencies or ratios of characteristic frequency separations and spectroscopic parameters such as effective temperature and metallicity. It uses a Bayesian approach to find the probability distribution functions of stellar parameters.
Nov. 11, 2016
AIMS logo. Credit: University of Birmingham
We are coordinating the inaugural workshop on Astronomy and Space Science in Uganda. This event will provide a forum for Ugandan specialists from various universities to present their latest research discoveries in the field of Astronomy and Space Science. Additionally, it will serve as a means to foster and enhance collaborative efforts.
Following the travel restrictions and lockdown measures which were set by the government of Uganda in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19, SSAASS (Sub-Saharan Africa Astronomy Summer School) was postponed to 2022. On January 1st 2022, majority of the travel restrictions and night curfew were lifted by the government of Uganda, however Covid-19 SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) remain enforced as a safe guard.
I am glad to highlight that SSAASS preparations are now ongoing. I highlight that Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) and Kyambogo University (KYU) in conjunction with the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA), Thüringer-Landessternwarte-Tautenburg (TLS), and Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA) are at the forefront of organising a Sub-Saharan Africa Advanced Astronomy Summer School in Uganda focusing on three fields of scientific research, namely galaxies, extra-solar planet science, and stellar interior physics. The goal of the summer school is to invite experts to share the state-of-the-art techniques/methods currently employed in these scientific research areas. In addition, research areas such as exoplanet and stellar physics studies have strong synergies and therefore present opportunities for generating research ideas which cut across the two fields, thus creating avenues for networking and building substantial collaborations among researchers and students in these fields.
Some of the SSAASS LOC (local Organising Committee) members after their first meeting held on January 28th, 2022 at Mbarara University of Science and Technology. From left to right; Dr. Benard Nsamba, Dr. Francis Bajunirwe, Prof. Mirjana Pović, Dr. Priscilla Muheki, and Dr. Cosmos Dumba. The LOC members who were online included Prof. Dr. Achim Weiss, Prof. Artie Hatzes, Dr. Elizabeth Naluminsa, Ms. Flavia Owayesu, and Dr. Oyirwoth Abedigamba.
On January 28th, 2022, the SSAASS LOC (local Organising Committee) members had their first meeting aimed at replanning the school. New dates were selected which will be announced on the official school website soon. Due to the huge volume of applications which were received in 2020, no new call may be announced. The selection of successful applicants will be made from the pool of applications already received.
It is indeed an exciting opportunity for African students. We believe this school will provide a platform for creating long-lasting collaborations with the different international experts in the astronomy fields of galaxies, extra-solar planet science, and stellar interior physics.
8 November 2021: During the Branco Weiss new fellow online symposium, I got a chance to present my project which involves combining stellar models with spectroscopic and seismic observations of stars to explore the impact of stellar interior physics on the nature and sizes of stellar cores. Detailed insights on stellar interior structures and physics are currently being made possible through the study of stellar oscillations, which are stochastically excited and intrinsically damped by turbulence in the outermost layers of stellar convective envelopes (i.e., Asteroseismology).
These oscillations are similar to those observed in the Sun, thus known as solar-like oscillations. Solar-like oscillations carry information allowing fundamental stellar parameters (e.g. radius, mass, and age) to be precisely determined, while also paving the way for the interior stellar structure to be constrained to unprecedented levels; given that individual oscillation mode frequencies are measured. In a nutshell, the schematic figure on the left shows the scientific graphical abstract of the project.
.
