Scientists have discovered a common denominator between the Sun and Alpha Centauri A, their internal vibrations.
A glimpse of what the sun will look like in a billion and a half years
Avi Blizovsky
Graphical visualization of acoustic waves inside a Sun-like star
Sound waves passing through the Sun have revealed some of the star's innermost secrets. Now for the first time, the astronomers heard the faint song within another point of light, a familiar hum.
Listening to the interior of the sun expand our knowledge of the energy circles that swarm in its depths. But putting a stethoscope on other stars has proven difficult because of the weakness of the sound waves.
Now Swiss astronomers have announced that they have discovered slight fluctuations in the sun-like star, Alpha Centauri, which is about 4 light years away.
The new observations conducted in May at the European Southern Observatory in Chile revealed the star pulsating in seven-minute cycles.
For decades, scientists studying the Sun have listened to the Sun's depths, much as geologists monitor seismic waves driven by earthquakes to learn about Earth's active interior.
In the Sun's core, nuclear reactions emit large amounts of energy. The nearly boiling gas bubbles up at the speed of sound.
Did you know - Alpha Centauri is one of the most prominent stars in the southern sky and there was an object that worked on it in the ancient Nile.
The conduction process of the material inside the sun creates a noise, similar to that of water in a pot starting to boil. The sound waves re-pass through the inside of the membrane and are reflected on the surface as they oscillate which is visible to the eye.
The "ringing" of the sun is well known, and it gives information about the physical conditions below the surface. The faint tremors in other stars have proven elusive
However, François Bouchy and Fabian Carrier announced on June 28 that they had discovered very clear fluctuations in Alpha Centauri A - the brightest star in a multi-star system in the constellation Centaurus. The two stars are very similar in appearance, as they have a similar mass, as well as the temperature and brightness, but Alpha Centauri A is 6.5 billion years old, compared to the 5 million years of the Sun's existence, and contains twice as much heavy material.
"We are interested in sun-like stars because we can learn a lot about the internal structure and evolution of the sun," Carrier says. "In a way, by looking at Alpha Centauri A, we can see what the Sun will look like in 1.5 billion years."
The acoustic waves reaching the surface of Alpha Centauri A, and the spectrum of the star's surface are of variable intensity.
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