The stars in our galaxy are serenading us with songs, that is, if we take the time to translate them.
According to a new paper published in Nature, constant “starquakes” cause some stars to fluctuate in brightness — a result that seems mostly unrelated to music. But by translating these fluctuations in brightness into fluctuations in acoustic frequencies, scientists can tune in to a star’s sound, learning important information about its age and its other traits.
Studying 27 separate stars in our galaxy’s Open Cluster M67, the authors of the paper found that a star’s acoustic frequencies stop fluctuating at a specific point in its lifespan, allowing scientists to identify the age of a star with a stagnating sound.
“This research helps us better understand how stars evolve and provides a new tool to estimate their age,” said Claudia Reyes, a paper author and an asteroseismologist at Australian National University, according to a press release. “Which is crucial for studying the evolution of our galaxy.”
