It's a pulsating star that swells and shrinks periodically.

它是一颗脉动的恒星，周期性地膨胀和收缩。

They found dozens of pulsating stars in it, literally stars that changed their brightness in a regular, periodic fashion.

他们发现其中有几十颗脉动恒星，这些恒星以一种规则的、周期性的方式改变它们的亮度。

A lot of other phenomena could masquerade as planets, like starspots, or pulsating stars, or background stars messing up the measurements.

许多其他的天文现象也可能伪装成行星，比如恒星黑子，或脉动的恒星，或隐藏恒星扰乱了测量。

And since there were pulsating Cepheid stars whose actual distances we already knew, this let us build a cosmic measuring stick.

既然我们已经知道这些有规律脉动的造父变星的实际距离，这就给我们造出一把宇宙测量尺。

Radio astronomers could be on the verge of demonstrating a new way of detecting gravitational waves by harnessing pulsating neutron stars as beacons.

射电天文学家可能即将展示一种通过利用脉动中子星作为信标来探测引力波的新方法。