The Daily Swarm - Listen: Scientists Record the Sound of the Sun...

Headlines

June 22, 2010

Listen: Scientists Record the Sound of the Sun...

Sound of the Sun (courtesy Richard Morton) by University of Sheffield

Scientists at Sheffield University in the U.K. have just released what amounts to a recording of what you would hear if you could stand inside the solar corona — the upper layer of the sun’s atmosphere — and it turns out that what you’d hear is music. The simple symphony that fills the corona not only is beautiful but could also could yield new insights into how the sun operates.

The corona is not just the blast wall of heat and light that it seems to be. Rather, it’s filled with vaguely banana-shaped plasma structures known as coronal loops. Measuring up to 60,000 miles (about 100,000 km) long, the loops help keep the corona turbulent and, like ocean currents that eventually produce tidal waves, give rise to the cosmic fireworks known as solar flares…