Stars generate sounds on their surface in an unexpected way , according to new experimental evidence . Of course , as space is a vacuum it is impossible to hear sound in space , but the discovery reveals a new way that fluids can interact to produce a sound - one with an extremely high frequency . The discovery was made by a team of scientists including Dr John Pasley of the York Plasma Institute in the Department of Physics . A team of scientists that included York University made the discovery . They fired an ultra-intense laser on fluids in a laboratory . When they did this , the plasma in the fluid produced a sound wave . This process is thought to also be taking place in stars ( sun pictured ) They found that , when material - dust or gas from nearby - falls onto a star , it can produce an extremely high pitched sound in the plasma . Dr Pasley told MailOnline that the phenomenon is 'more common in younger stars ' that are still accumulating material from their surroundings . It would be less common in more mature stars , like our sun . To make the finding , the team studied fluids in motion in a laboratory and found that , when plasma is hit with an ultra-intense laser , it produces some strange effects . Using a method not too dissimilar to how a speed camera works , they were able to observe how the fluid moves at the point it is struck . Often called the fourth state of matter , plasma is a state of matter where heat or another energy has been added to a gas . This makes many of its atoms release some , or all , of their electrons . The resultant electrically charged gas is said to be ‘ ionised ’ , and when enough atoms are ionised , the gas is said to be a plasma . Interestingly , plasma is thought to make up more than 99 per cent of all matter in the universe . A trillionth of a second after the laser hits , plasma was found to flow quickly from areas of high density to low density . In so doing , the plasma between the regions of different density produces pressure pulses , or a sound wave . However , with a frequency of nearly a trillion hertz , the sound wave produced is six million times higher in frequency than anything that can be heard by a mammal . It is also almost the highest frequency possible in such a material . According to the scientists , a prime location for this rare event occurring is on the surface of stars . The process is thought to be taking place on stars like the sun , pictured , where plasma is in abundance . In fact , plasma is thought to make up 99 per cent of matter in the universe . ‘ When they are accumulating new material , stars could generate sound in a very similar manner to that which we observed in the laboratory - so the stars might be singing - but , since sound can not propagate through the vacuum of space , no-one can hear them , ’ said Dr Pasley . However , he noted that it would be difficult to directly observe this effect in stars , as the sound waves do not propagate into the space around the star . ‘ It was initially hard to determine the origin of the acoustic signals , but our model produced results that compared favourably with the wavelength shifts observed in the experiment , ’ added Dr Alex Robinson , from the Plasma Physics Group at the Science and Technology Facilities Council ’ s Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire . ‘ This showed that we had discovered a new way of generating sound from fluid flows . Similar situations could occur in plasma flowing around stars. ’ The research , published in Physical Review Letters , was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research .
A team of scientists that included York University made the discovery . They fired an ultra-intense laser on fluids in a laboratory . When they did this , the plasma in the fluid produced a sound wave . The waves were so loud and strong that it was able to penetrate walls as far away as 100 feet from where the lasers hit them.