The look of stars

Visualizations

The animations below simulate the changing temperature distribution across the surface of nonradially pulsating white dwarf stars. These temperature variations cause the observed brightness variations. Each clip shows a single mode of pulsation. Modes are labeled with two integer indices. The first gives the number of lines on the surface which the temperature does not change. The second gives the number of such lines that pass through the poles. Note that the apparent rotation of the star is simply the pattern moving around star. In all these simulations the star itself is not rotating.