The Sound of Earthsong

[Jopa]

NASA spacecraft are constantly collecting and beaming back loads of data about our planet. The latest amazing offering is what NASA is calling "Earthsong." The agency's twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes have sent back a recording of the sounds that our planet makes, or more specifically, the electromagnetic radiation made by plasma waves in the radiation belts -- a phenomenon called chorus. The probes have delivered the clearest example of these sounds ever recorded since they're traveling right through that region and because the data is sampled in 16 bit, or the same as an audio CD.

 

"This is what the radiation belts would sound like to a human being if we had radio antennas for ears," says Craig Kletzing, whose team at the University of Iowa built the “EMFISIS†(Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science) receiver used to pick up the signals.

 

Chorus isn't made up of acoustic waves like those that travel through air here on the ground, but of radio waves that oscillate at acoustic frequencies, between 0 and 10 kHz. The receivers on the probes are specifically designed to pick up these waves.

 

 

Watch the video below for the sounds and an explanation of the science behind them.

 

[Johnwick]

Jackson Earthsong better

[Jopa]

Jackson Earthsong better

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