Stars’ Twinkle Sounds Like Rhythmic Noise: ‘Pretty Horrible’

Stars twinkle, and we are aware of it; there's even a popular English lullaby titled "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." A new study stimulated how their twinkle sounds, far from the song we memorized during childhood.

Scientists Stimulate Stars' Twinkle

Researchers from Northwestern University studied the twinkling stars. They created the first 3D simulation to calculate how much a star should naturally twinkle,

According to astronomer Evan Anders, who conducted the study, their model predicted a subtle twinkling that was not visible to the naked eye. One needs massive telescopes to observe it, Newsweek reported.

He added that star core motions cause waves like those on the ocean to break. They created computer models that allowed them to predict how much a star should twinkle due to the waves. When the waves reach the star's surface, they cause it to twinkle.

Anders and his team were able to connect the brightness of a star's twinkle to the movements of the waves inside it using their models. He claimed that by doing so, they could understand more about what occurs in stars' core regions, which are invisible to telescopes, and perhaps one day, even the deepest areas of our sun.

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Star's Twinkle Sounds Horrible

The sounds produced by the rippling gas inside the star and on its surface are beyond the range of human hearing. Anders and his colleagues increased the frequencies of the waves in these simulations to produce audible sounds, so they could get an idea of what this may sound like.

He noted that it sounded like noise and not a quick chirp when they played the audio. He described it as "pretty horrible."

It reportedly produced repetitive noise similar to a jackhammer, and the static occasionally heard between radio stations. Anders added that the sound heard at the surface is a hybrid of a siren and a low, ominous rumble. The siren is louder (more bass) and easier to hear in the background when a star is more massive.

He claimed that it is difficult for the untrained ear to distinguish the distinctions between the rippling sounds at the star's core and its surface because it is still just atmospheric noise. To make it simpler to hear precisely what alterations the star would make to the original tune, the researchers opted to run well-known songs through the star simulations.

When listening to music, they heard a wide range of notes. Some were reportedly high, while others were low. It is a little bit simpler to comprehend the distinctions one star creates compared to another when they listen to the song after passing it through a star because they can hear how the star independently impacts high-pitched and low-pitched sounds, Anders said.

The expert said they want the audience to understand how various star affects their waves in multiple ways. For instance, in the smaller star, one can faintly hear the music itself, but it filters out a lot of the bass notes, and the star creates high-pitched oscillations that are like wind chimes.

The song's higher-pitched notes are absent from the larger star, which almost sounds like an organ is playing it. The windchimes, meanwhile, now sound like microphone feedback.

The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.