Interpreting Spectra Across Domains: From Stellar Chemistry to Bushfire Risk Assessment

Dates

• Tuesday 1.7.2025 16:00 - 18:00
• In SR C, Mathematikon

Speaker

• Dr. Sven Buder, DECRA fellow at the Australian National University

Content

Spectroscopy — the study of how light across different wavelengths — is one of the most powerful tools in science. In astronomy, it allows us to decode the starlight that travels across our Galaxy and reveals the chemical elements forged over billions of years. Using data-driven models to trace the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, large stellar surveys like GALAH have thus enabled us to map the chemical evolution from millions of stars. But spectroscopy isn’t limited to stars! In this talk, I’ll show how we are using our flexible model algorithm not only for analysing stellar spectra, but to interpret reflectance spectra from plant leaves. These spectra contain subtle features that encode information about leaf chemistry and structure — properties closely linked to vegetation flammability and, in turn, bushfire risk. By comparing how light encodes information in both stellar and leaf spectra, I’ll illustrate how methods developed for Galactic archaeology can be applied to environmental challenges. This interdisciplinary journey highlights how astronomical tools can find surprising new applications here on Earth.