STAR QUAKES

Seismic waves unleashed by the violent forces inside stars are revealing once-hidden secrets of stellar interiors

What does a star sound like? It might seem like a strange question, but every star in the sky is generating sound waves, even if we can’t hear them across light years of vacuum. What’s more, these stellar waves have frequencies much too low for human hearing – periods of minutes to hours, compared to the 20 to 20,000 cycles per second our ears can pick up. In effect, these sound waves are the same as the seismic waves that are known to cause earthquakes on our own planet. Most earthquakes are triggered in Earth’s relatively thin outer crust. In a similar fashion, stellar seismic waves are generated by the churning of huge masses of gas in the upper layers, close to a star’s visible surface. Both types of wave…

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All About Space Tour of the Universe (Digital) - 1 Issue, All About Space Tour of the Universe 4th Edition

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