Exhibit:

Introduction | Ancient sky-watchers | Celestial deities in the time of the pharaohs | Cosmic connectors | The sun at which one cannot stare | Without the moon, there would be no life | Lunar enlightenment | Cosmic models | Celestial guidance | A universe of possibilities |

RR Lyrae stars are used as distance indicators ("cosmic lighthouses") and tracers of galactic evolution.

Frequencies of the southern RR Lyrae star SS For were converted into sound by Elisabeth Guggenberger. We followed this star in a multisite campaign (from South Africa and Australia) in 2005.

This star shows a mysterious modulation of its light curve shape, and the modulation can clearly be perceived in the sound file.

The actual frequencies were sped up by a factor of about 8 million (shifted by 23 octaves) to bring them into the audible region for our human ears.

PG1159+035 is a star nearly on the stellar graveyard. In its inside it is already a white dwarf.

The pitch was multiplied with a factor of 2 million to produce the sound you hear.

The first sound is the pure stellar sound. In the second part of the sound file the consecutive radial orders of the stellar pulsation have been transformed into octaves, which makes them sound more harmonious to our human ears.

The star sound files were then fed into a new scientific instrument called a CymaScope which makes the periodicities in the star sounds visible as periodic wavelets on the surface of water, effectively rendering the sounds visible.

Chi Hydrae:
Credit: ESO European Southern Observatory

Solar Frequencies
Guenter Houdek and Douglas Gough

Exhibit:

Introduction | Ancient sky-watchers | Celestial deities in the time of the pharaohs | Cosmic connectors | The sun at which one cannot stare | Without the moon, there would be no life | Lunar enlightenment | Cosmic models | Celestial guidance | A universe of possibilities |