The team, which is part of one of the biggest international collaborations in astronomy, the Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium (KASC), found 500 stars that ring like the Sun. Dr Hans Kjeldsen from Aarhus, who coordinates KASC, said ‘Before Kepler we had asteroseismic data on only about 20 such stars. We now have an orchestra of stars to play with, and this opens up huge possibilities for probing stellar evolution and obtaining a clearer picture of the past and future of our own Sun and how our galaxy, and others like it, has evolved over time. We can, for example, pick out stars that weigh the same as the Sun but have different ages, to, in effect, follow the Sun in time…'