Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944)
This image is in the public domain.
Sounds of the Stars
Arthur Eddington wrote a book called
The Internal Constitution of the Stars. He asked:
"What... can pierce through the outer layers of a star and test the conditions within?" Now we know the answer.
The
sounds of the stars.
We can use earthquakes to understand the inside of the earth. We can also learn about the insides of stars that pulsate.
They make very low sound waves. What if the waves moved a million times faster? We could hear the sounds of the stars!
Different stars would make different sounds. A star
like our own Sun is alpha Centauri (click to listen). A giant star like xi Hydrae sounds deeper. A tiny white dwarf star like GD 358 sounds higher. We can even make
music
from these sounds.
You might also be interested in:
Did you know that the Sun has spots? They are called sunspots. Other stars have spots too. They are called starspots. Both sunspots and starspots are cool spots (well, colder than the bright areas around
...moreAstronomers use a special term to talk about the brightness of stars. The term is "magnitude". The magnitude scale was invented by the ancient Greeks around 150 B.C. The Greeks put the stars they could
...moreBecause of the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun, we divide the stars and constellations into two groups. Some stars and constellations never rise nor set, and they are called circumpolar.
...moreSatellites in the 1960's looked for a type of light called Gamma Rays. They found bursts of Gamma Rays coming from outer space! They can't hurt you. They are stopped by the Earth's atmosphere. We have
...moreWhen we look up at the night sky, we notice that there are many stars in our sky. Stars must like to live together in star cities - galaxies. Our city of stars is called the Milky Way, and it is home to
...moreNeutron Stars form when really big stars die. When such a star runs out of fuel its center begins to collapse under gravity. When the center collapses the entire star collapses. The surface of the star
...more Spiral galaxies may remind you of a pinwheel that blows in the breeze. Like a pinwheel, a spiral galaxy is rotating, and it has spiral arms. Through a telescope or binoculars,a spiral galaxy may look
...more