The sound of stars
Audiolizations
The oscillation periods of pulsating white dwarfs range from 100s to 1000s,
the corresponding frequencies are 0.01 to 0.001 cycles/second.
If we "speed up" the white dwarf pulsations by a factor of
86,400 (the number of seconds in one day) then the frequencies
enter the audible range. Sped up by this factor, one day passes in
just on second.
The following sound files are simulations of what pulsating white
dwarf stars would "sound" like if sped up in this way. The first in
each pair is a continuous sample corresponding to 12 days of unbroken
data such as can be obtained by the Whole Earth Telescope (WET).
The second file in each pair simulates "observation" at a single site.
Each short segment is a single nights observation. The WET sampling
shows the full pattern which is much less obvious in the single
site examples. When ready, we will present actual WET data in this
format and make it available on this server.
- GD385: Periods of 256.127 seconds and 256.332 seconds along with
a harmonic at 128.115 seconds. The period beats every 3.7 days.
- ZZ Ceti: Two pairs of periods. The first pair, at 212.8 seconds,
beats up and down every 1.44 days. The second pair, at 274 seconds,
beats with a period of 1.67 days.