Abstract :
Asteroseismology, the extension of helioseismology to stars – solar-alike or not – has been an exciting and active field of research for about two decades. While over that period helioseismology has had great success in revealing the solar structure and its dynamics, progress in asteroseismology has been hampered by the observational challenge to carry out, primarily from the ground, high precision measurements on unresolved objects with a substantially lower flux.Over the past years, the field has seen a new golden age, primarily driven by observational advances and opportunities. With the June 2003 launch of the MOST spacecraft and the highly anticipated December 2006 launch of the COROT mission, we have truly entered the space-based observational era of asteroseismology. The ambitious vision mission like the Stellar Imager might even one day allow us to spatially resolve oscillations on not too distant stars. At the same time ground-based observations have recently seen a quantum leap in precision thanks to the synergy between asteroseismology and exo-planet detection which both rely primarily on precise radial velocity techniques.
The diagnostic potential of asteroseismology is clearly demonstrated by the wealth of inferences collected from helioseismology. Nevertheless the current status of observations, their interpretations and their implications for our models remain hotly debated subjects.
I review the status of the field, with an emphasis on solar-like targets, while incorporating my own healthy scepticism and observational bias.
