Main purpose of the experiment: investigation of pulsation, rotation and internal structure of stars, measuring photometric microvariabilities induced by these oscillations. Characteristics of the oscillations (frequency, amplitude and coherence time) are used to probe the physical stage of the stellar interiors, i.e., the equation of state, the convective energy transport and the angular momentum distribution.

Investigation methods: long--time, continuous, high--precision photometric observations of several bright stars during the cruise of the Russian MARS-96 spacecraft from Earth to Mars. The instrument composed of a photometer and a stellar sensor is installed in a pointing platform PAIS. The photometer is a 9 cm telescope with a photomultiplier, working in photon counting mode. The stellar sensor measures the position of the star with a CCD matrix and transfers this information to PAIS.
This experiment is the first one of that kind in the world.

In the beginning of the chapter

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