Taking the Pulse of the Sun

Abstract

The Sun is playing a secret melody, hidden inside itself, that produces a widespread throbbing motion of its surface. The sounds are coursng through the Sun’s interior, causing the entire globe, or parts of it, to nove in and out, slowly and rhythmically like the regular rise and fall of ides in a bay or of a beating heart (see Fig. 4.1)! This astonishing discovery has been the result of a long, productive interplay between unexpectd or unique observations, often with new instrumental techniques, and heoretical explanations or predictions.