Symphony 13 billion years: the sounds of the solar system and distant stars

The “music” of the cosmos is a well-known research method in which various space objects are subject to “voice acting”. Cosmos is filled with electromagnetic (and not only) waves of various frequencies: X-rays and gamma radiation, ultraviolet, visible light, infrared radiation, radio waves. Some waves we can amplify and translate into sound signals.

To convert cosmic radiation into sound waves is possible for two purposes:

• collecting information in repeated patterns of sound and the search for patterns, i.e. obtaining a specific set of data for research;
• getting aesthetic pleasure.

Scientists are constantly posting collections of space "music" (no need to complain about the rare release of new "albums"), so everyone can create their own card index of the sounds of the universe, do scientific research, make a remix. Or just listen to a concert performed by Mars.

"Breath" of the universe

Gravitational waves recorded recently by the LIGO observatory have been converted to sound waves. The oscillation of the sound frequency corresponds to the oscillation frequency of gravitational waves.

Scientists at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Waterloo liked this sound so much that they recorded the blues based on it.

Noise from far space

The so-called fast radio bursts (FRB) are single radio pulses lasting several milliseconds of unknown nature, recorded by radio telescopes around the world. The typical burst energy is estimated to be equivalent to the release into outer space of the energy emitted by the Sun over several tens of thousands of years.

For the first time and absolutely by chance, a fast radio burst was detected in February 2007. It took 10 years of research to establish a source of pulses, which is located in a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years from Earth. However, what exactly causes bursts of long waves at the end of the electromagnetic spectrum remains the subject of debate.

How all the planets of the solar system “sound”

How does sound spread on the surface of our nearest neighbors? Yes, Mercury does not have an atmosphere, and on its surface it would be very quiet. However, vibrations can be heard if you press your ear to the ground. On the contrary, Venus has a very dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Sound waves can be muffled because they pass through something denser than air, but less dense than water.

Mars is very quiet, but Jupiter is probably one of the loudest planets in the solar system - the gas giant has many cloud layers, so any noise will create a lot of rebounds. Theoretically, one sound will have numerous echoes. These and other sounds can be heard in the video above.

Sounds of the Red Planet

More about Mars. The video was recorded from January 2004 to April 2015 and shows the way to 42.2 kilometers.

The Opportunity microphone was used on a device designed to measure the chemical composition of rocks and soil by evaporating them using the technology of laser-spark emission spectrometry. The laser “shoots” at a target that “explodes” in the form of a plasma and creates a very sharp pressure wave, the acoustic signal of which is proportional to the mass of the sample being destroyed. Using a microphone to tune, calibrate and focus the laser helps improve instrument performance, but at the same time allows you to record many new sounds from the surface of the Red Planet.

Cassini Swan Song

The Cassini, which will soon sacrifice itself for the sake of science, recorded the sounds of blows of hundreds of ring particles per second, which evaporated into an electrically excited gas.

The sounds of thunderstorms on Saturn

Cassini also sends scientists sounds that transmit chaotic motion deep in the atmosphere under the clouds of Saturn.

TRAPPIST-1 Orchestra

Canadian astrophysicists have voiced the movement of exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. The orbits of the planets of this system lie close to the central star - for example, the year on the sixth planet lasts just over 12 days. The orbits of celestial bodies are known only with some accuracy, it is known that the periods of the planets correlate in pairs almost like integers - resonances. For example, a 2: 3 resonance means that three turns of one planet account for exactly two turns of another planet.

Astrophysicist Matt Rousseau visualized and created an audio recording of resonances. When the exoplanet makes the transit in front of the star, a note is played, the frequency of which is associated with the orbital period of the celestial body. When two planets approach each other, a drum kick sounds. In addition, the recording uses data on changes in the brightness of the star.

"Cat" purr comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko

The scientists of the European Space Agency used their spacecraft “Rosette” to record the sound made by the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko due to the oscillations of the magnetic field. So that we can hear this sound, its frequency has been increased by about 10,000 times.

Space Sonatas

The voiced version of one of the most powerful explosions in the universe - the gamma-ray burst GRB 080916C. The played notes represent the correspondence to the gamma rays received by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope space telescope.

This video is a compilation of 241 J1 type Ia supernovae, which appeared as a result of white dwarf explosions. Each supernova was assigned a note that was played according to the following rules:

• note volume — the distance to the supernova, with the more distant supernova becoming quieter and weaker;
• the length was determined by the parameters of the luminosity of the supernova;
• the instrument on which the note was played — supernovae located in large galaxies were played on the double bass, while supernovae located in smaller galaxies were played on the piano.

Solar chorale

You hear the recording made from 1998 to 2010. spectrometer on board the spacecraft Advanced Composition Explorer NASA, measuring the speed of the solar wind. A total of 88,840 samples collected over a 12-year period were compressed to create two seconds of audio (the file was looped). The 27-day solar period of rotation sounds like noise at a frequency of about 68.5 Hz.

The last chord today will be played by scientists at the University of Birmingham, who presented audio recordings of the sounds of the oldest stars of the Milky Way, based on data collected by the Kepler space telescope. Astronomers measured the acoustic vibrations of several ancient stars in the M4 cluster and based on them recreated sounds .