The HMI instrument onboard SDO uses Helioseismology to look at "sunquakes" to determine some of the physical properties and motions inside our Sun. There is a great news release about the Kepler mission using a similar technique, Asteroseismology, to look at "starquakes" to determine similar characteristics of other stars. Both sets of observations will lead to significant advances about the evolution of stars, including our own, to better determine the activity cycles over short (years) and longer (hundreds and millions of years) time scales. Make sure to check out more about HMI at:
http://hmi.stanford.edu/
and also see the article at Space.com about Kepler at:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/starquakes-kepler-star-evolution-101026.html
