NASA makes us hear the strange song of the Earth and the Sun

“In space, no one can hear you scream.” That hook, we all know it. that ofAlien, VIII^H passenger. Science based hook. Because in the vacuum of space, sound cannot propagate. However, today NASA is actually asking us to listen to the song of the sun and the earth. As part of a citizen science project called Harp (Audible Solar Physics: Resonance in Plasmas).

How is this possible? Because the space between the sun and the earth is not completely empty. It’s even filled with a soup of charged particles. Plasma blown by the solar wind. Which, when it encounters the magnetic field that surrounds our planet, makes its lines vibrate. A bit like the plucked strings… of a lyre. But at such a low frequency that our ears do not hear the symphony thus created.

The human ear listens to space

Since 2007, the five NASA satellites have been on the Themis mission – for Chronological history of major events and interactions during substorms – Record the Earth’s magnetosphere guitar. Now researchers have converted these ultra-frequency waves into sounds we can hear. Sounds that undoubtedly conceal important information about the near-Earth space environment and the relationship we have with our sun.

The human sense of hearing is an amazing toolexplains Martin Archer, member of the Harp team at Imperial College London (UK), in a NASA press release. We are trained from birth to recognize patterns and to choose different sound sources. We can naturally do some crazy analysis that outperforms even some of the most advanced computer algorithms. “ During a previous project, high school students had already determined, in data from NOAA satellites (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association), a new plasma wave pattern related to solar storms. By opening Harp’s data to the world, to very different ears, the researchers hope to discover things they hadn’t thought of before.

To participate in the adventure, it is before here.