Seismic oscillations were first noticed on the Sun in 1979. Today the Sun's quivers and shrugs are monitored in detail. We'll be able to learn the same things about other stars. But it's much harder to detect the pulsing of a star such as beta Hydri, which is 1.5 million times further away than the Sun. To crack the problem the researchers applied a high-precision technique that is used to hunt for planets around other stars.
Light comes from a star's surface.
The researchers sampled the light from beta Hydri every two minutes for five nights in a row, making 1200 observations in all. Pulsations in the Sun have a period of about five minutes. Because of this, astronomers predicted that beta Hydri's oscillations would take 15 to 20 minutes. In a triumph for theory, the research team found the oscillation period was 17 minutes. So much of what we think we know about the universe rests on the ages and properties of stars.