Spacecraft eavesdrops on distant stars

Using sensitive light detectors to record a cosmic orchestra — sound waves emanating from thousands of distant stars — NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is hitting the high notes, the low notes and everything in between. The amplitude and frequency of each sound wave, which Kepler detects as tiny flickers in starlight, has already enabled the craft to pin down the age and size of a sunlike star to unprecedented accuracy, researchers said October 26 during a telephone briefing with reporters.