US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — The class of stars that propagated dissonant frequencies throughout the galaxy has just been determined. Using data collected by the NASA TESS space telescope, astronomers have found the rhythm of pulsations of strange young stars.
They are called delta scuti variable stars, and they spin so fast that they smooth out their ripple frequency, creating what seems like chaos.
Astronomers have distinguished order from this chaos: regular high-frequency pulsation modes identified in 60 stars of the intermediate mass delta scuti, in the range from 1.5 to 2.5 solar masses.
“The stars of delta scuti are clearly pulsating, but the patterns of these pulsations are not yet understood,” said astronomer Tim Bedding of the University of Sydney in Australia.
“To use the musical analogy, many stars pulsate with simple chords, but delta scooty stars are complex, with notes that seem mixed.
Star ripples are not unusual. Many stars – perhaps even all of them – oscillate in rhythmic patterns caused by acoustic waves inside the star. It is believed that these waves are created by convection and the magnetic field of the star, and they cause the star to expand slightly and contract like a heartbeat. This can be detected by slight fluctuations in the amount of light emitted by the star.
Just as earthquakes can be used to probe the Earth, star oscillations can show what is happening inside them, which can be used to obtain additional information about properties such as their age, composition and temperature.
“This is truly a breakthrough. We now have regular series of pulsations of these stars that we can understand and compare with the models, ”said astronomer Simon Murphy of the University of Sydney.
“This will allow us to study such stars with the help of asteroseismology in ways that we have never succeeded in.”
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