By Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Astrophysicsist

The enigmatic pulsating variable stars have just become more intriguing – as astronomers find them to be pulsating at the Golden ratio!

Any star that varies in brightness – whether on timescale of seconds or years – falls into the category of variable stars, where the variability can be due to changes in stellar luminosity, mass, size or position. While extrinsic variables are simply due to the eclipsing of the source by another source such as a star or planet, intrinsic variables change in brightness due to underlying physical mechanisms such as pulsations and/or eruptions. The pulsating variable stars shrink and swell in size, thus varying their intrinsic luminosity and in effect pulsating through continuous contraction and expansion. Cepheid variables, the most famous of the pulsating variables, are well known and much loved by astronomers for their use in the measurement of intergalactic...