The “music” of stars could help explain how galaxies form, according to scientists.
The stars that we see in the night sky are undergoing continuous “starquakes” that mean their brightness fluctuates all the time.
Those fluctuations can be turned into frequencies, like those in music, scientists say. The frequencies in turn can help us understand how old and massive a star is, as well as other characteristics.
Researchers say they can listen to the changes in those frequencies, like the altering pitch of a piece of music, to understand the story and origins of stars.
“Starquakes occur in certain stars, leading to a continuous cycle of brightening and dimming. By carefully observing these tiny fluctuations in brightness, we can listen to a star’s musical rhythm,” said Claudia Reyes, from Australian National University.
“These fluctuations are like musical notes, similar to the vibrations of a string or the hum of a drum, that can be translated into frequencies. Each frequency tells us more about the star’s size, chemical composition and internal structure.”
In the study, researchers looked at a cluster of 27 stars 2,700 light years away, examining the “sounds” they made. They were chosen because they are all siblings: they were born in the same gas cloud, four billion years ago, having similar chemical compositions but different masses.
That allows scientists to more easily compare them. By looking at their masses, they can see how quickly they have evolved.
But the research might help scientists better understand stars much close to home, such as our own Sun. It was born in a similar cluster, and so the findings will help explain what might happen as it ages.
The findings are reported in a new study, ‘Acoustic modes in M67 cluster stars trace deepening convective envelopes’, published in the journal Nature.
