autocorrelation function timescale technique tagged posts

For distant stars with planets orbiting them, this information is key in determining whether any of those planets can harbour life. Knowing the surface gravity of a star is essentially knowing how much you would weigh on that star. If stars had solid surfaces on which you could stand, then your weight would change from star to star. On the sun you would weigh 20X more than on Earth. A red giant star (future fate of our Sun) has a much weaker pull at its surface, so you’d be 50X lighter.

The new method allows scientists to measure surface gravity with an accuracy of about 4%, for stars too distant and too faint to apply current techniques...