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Astrophysics

Inner workings of a star

Nature volume 461, pages 485–486 (2009)Cite this article

By borrowing a technique used by seismologists to investigate Earth's interior, astronomers have probed the hitherto-unknown interior rotation profile of a white-dwarf star.

Just as the sound of a musical instrument is determined by the material from which it is made, so the period with which the brightness of a pulsating star oscillates depends on the specific structure of its interior. Using asteroseismology, astronomers can measure the temporal frequency spectra of pulsating stars — the seismograms of astronomers — to infer information about the stars' otherwise unobservable interior. For example, rotating pulsating stars 'sound' different from non-rotating stars: because rotating stars cannot preserve their spherically symmetric shape during pulsation, their temporal frequency spectrum is marked by non-radial modes of pulsation. This property has allowed astronomers to measure the spin rates of pulsating white dwarfs1 — stellar remnants of relatively low-mass stars. But probing the internal rotation profiles of these stars is a different matter, and one that astronomers haven't thus far got to grips with.

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Figure 1: Cosmic cocoon.

NASA, ESA, K. NOLL (STSCI) & THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sung-Chul Yoon is at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy, University of Bonn, Auf dem Huegel 71, D-53121 Bonn, Germany. scyoon@astro.uni-bonn.de ,

    Sung-Chul Yoon

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  1. Sung-Chul Yoon
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Yoon, SC. Inner workings of a star. Nature 461, 485–486 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/461485a

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