Starquakes

Mighty eruptions on the sun trigger bursts of sound waves that ripple across the fiery ball of gas.

The finding, which will be published in the May 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, comes from data collected with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint venture between NASA and ESA.

Astronomers have known that sound waves constantly trek toward the sun's interior, producing a background "ringing" of sorts. As they move through the sun's plasma, the sound waves take on a pulsing pattern of five minutes, and hence are called five-minute oscillations.

They are also called starquakes.

"It's like waves in the ocean."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080418/sc_space/flaringtempercausessuntoquake