2022 Whitford Lecture by UW Astronomy Department

Observations from the Kepler satellite have provided a new tool for studying stars in the Milky Way. By measuring how bright a star is, we can measure its mass and radius, and sometimes its rate of rotation and magnetic field. This has now been done for thousands of stars across our galaxy allowing us to identify those few stars that are in short-lived phases of their evolution. It's a great story of how theory and observation can make a remarkable impact on our understanding of the universe.