SYDNEY, April 3 (Xinhua) -- A new Australian study unlocked new insights into stellar evolution by analyzing the "sounds" of stars in a cluster located 2,700 light-years away.
Published in Nature on Wednesday, this discovery provides astrophysicists with a novel technique to map the history and future of the Milky Way and other galaxies, said researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) who led the study.
By studying the oscillation frequencies of these stars using data from the space telescope Kepler K2 mission, researchers have developed a precise method to determine the age and mass of a star.
Much like musical instruments, stars "ring" at specific frequencies depending on their internal structure, said co-author Dennis Stello from the UNSW School of Physics.
"The biggest stars have the deepest sounds. Small stars have high-pitched sounds. And no one star plays just the one note at once -- each star covers a symphony of sound coming from its interior," Stello said, adding the process is like listening to an orchestra, and identifying instruments based on their sound.
"This is the first time we have really studied such a long range of evolutionary sequences, like we have in this cluster," he said.
The study examined 27 stars from M67, a cluster formed 4 billion years ago. Despite their similar chemical compositions, variations in mass made them ideal for studying evolution in real-time, said Claudia Reyes, the study's lead author.
Because M67 stars share similarities with the Sun, this research provides crucial insights into the Sun's past and its eventual transformation into a red giant, researchers said.
Reyes said that these findings were unexpected and suggest new avenues for analyzing existing astronomical data. ■
