Analyzing new data obtained from the space telescope, researchers have discovered
Astrophysicists note that previously Gaia foundradial oscillations that cause stars to periodically swell and contract while maintaining their spherical shape. In the telescope's new observations, scientists have detected another activity that looks most like a large-scale tsunami. It is noted that such fluctuations change the shape of the star, and therefore they are more difficult to detect.
The space telescope discovered strongnon-radial “starquakes” in thousands of stars. Such vibrations cause the star's surface to move as it rotates. The ESA report notes that vibrations of this kind for a number of stars contradict modern theories and require new explanations.
Non-radial vibrations cause the surfacethe stars move while rotating as shown in the animation. The dark spots are slightly cooler than the bright ones, which leads to periodic changes in the star's brightness. In the animation, the frequency of the spinning and pulsating stars was increased by 8.6 million times to bring them into the human audible range.
"»Starquakes» tell a lot aboutstars, especially about their inner workings. Gaia opens a gold mine for «astroseismology» massive stars,” says Connie Aerts, a researcher at KU Leuven and a member of the Gaia collaboration.
The Gaia space telescope is designed toobservation of the stars in the Milky Way. The telescope was launched in 2013 and has already compiled the most comprehensive catalog of our galaxy, which includes detailed data for almost 2 billion stars and other objects.
Cover image: Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab; Milky Way: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Read more
The Japanese dumped a giant turbine into the ocean to get endless energy from the current.
Private rocket fails to launch NASA's storm-watching satellites
Astronomers from Japan have found an unknown structure in the galaxy