Just Dropped: Solar Soundtrack

Image Credit: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

You might not think about it much, but the sun has its own set of unique vibrations which - when carefully processed at just the right frequency - actually produce sounds.

Now thanks to 20 years of solar atmospheric data from the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), we can all enjoy the soothing soundtrack of the sun. 

 

What does the sun sound like?

While it would seem that something as massive, intense and active as the sun would have a terrifying sound, it's actually more of a low, pulsing "heartbeat." 

How are we able to listen to the sun?

According to Space.com:

The Stanford Experimental Physics Lab turned data from SOHO into a "song." They worked with the sun's natural vibrations, which make up the hum and "heartbeat" that you may hear in the recording.

To create the audio clip above, researcher Alexander Kosovichev of Stanford University processed 40 days of data from SOHO's Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI). In processing the vibrations, he removed effects from the spacecraft's movement, selected clean sound waves that would be clearer to hear and sped the data up by a factor of 42,000 to bring it up to the audible range for humans.

 

What do the sounds of the sun tell us? 

According to Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland: “We don’t have straightforward ways to look inside the Sun. We don’t have a microscope to zoom inside the Sun, so using a star or the Sun’s vibrations allows us to see inside of it.” (Click here if you want to get really science-y.) 

These vibrations allow scientists to study a range of complex motions inside the Sun, from solar flares to coronal mass ejections.

“We can see huge rivers of solar material flowing around. We are finally starting to understand the layers of the Sun and the complexity,” Young said. “That simple sound is giving us a probe inside of a star. I think that’s a pretty cool thing.”

If you're lucky enough to be near Greenbelt, Maryland, be sure to stop by the Solarium, an immersive art installation at the NASA Goddard Visitor Center. 

Image Credit: NASA