Forget David Bowie's Life On Mars or Elton John's Rocket Man - the next music you hear could truly be out of this world.

A British scientist has recorded sounds from across the universe to make a collection of unearthly 'songs'.

Professor Don Kurtz gathered dozens of the 'space tracks' including those of the Sun and our third closest star, Alpha Centauri.

The astrophysicist said: "The stars have sounds in them. In a sense they ring like giant bells or musical instruments. One of them sounds like African drumming and has been used in nightclubs in Belgium for youngsters keen on dance music."

Stars vibrate at very low frequencies which have been boosted so they can be heard by humans. Each star has a unique sound - while some resemble a beating heart, others are more like an orchestra tuning up.

The vibrations are caused by reactions in the intensely hot core, creating waves of pressure that ripple through to the surface.

Because space is empty, the sounds cannot be carried to Earth. But the vibrations constantly affect the stars' brightness, the changes in which can be measured and converted back into sound.

The study of the stars' songs, called 'asteroseismology', also has a serious side, allowing scientists to discover new information about how stars are formed.

Sounds can give vast amounts of information about an object, just as a baby can be pictured using ultrasound.

Professor Kurtz added: "We can measure the speed of the sound through the star, which then tells us the temperature, the chemicals it is made of, the density, how it's rotating and its magnetic field."

The idea of stars singing can be traced to the Greek mathematician Pythagoras in the 6th Century BC. He suggested the movements of the planets formed patterns corresponding to 'the music of the spheres'.