Featured Image Credit: NASA
When you think about sounds in space, you probably imagine eerie, otherworldly noises.
But what about the Sun? Does it make any sound at all?
In short, yes it does. According to US space agency NASA, the Sun releases a low, pulsing hum - almost like a heartbeat.
But when NASA first released the Sun's audio to the public, it was nothing that people expected.
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Take a listen yourself (it's not as nightmarish as a black hole):
The sound was recorded using 40 days' worth of data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory’s (SOHO) Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) data and later processed by A. Kosovichev, NASA wrote in the caption of their video.
Describing how the space agency obtained the audio, they said: "The procedure he used for generating these sounds was the following. He started with doppler velocity data, averaged over the solar disk, so that only modes of low angular degree (l = 0, 1, 2) remained.
"Subsequent processing removed the spacecraft motion effects, instrument tuning, and some spurious points. Then Kosovichev filtered the data at about 3 mHz to select clean sound waves (and not supergranulation and instrumental noise). Finally, he interpolated over the missing data and scaled the data (speeded it up a factor 42,000 to bring it into the audible human-hearing range (kHz))."
The ESA and NASA's SOHO have been documenting the dynamic movement of the Sun's atmosphere for over 20 years.
Now with this audio, scientists can study what can’t be observed with the naked eye.
“Waves are traveling and bouncing around inside the Sun, and if your eyes were sensitive enough they could actually see this,” said Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Viewers shared their opinions of the audio snippet in the YouTube comments section.
"Almost sounds like a electricity line transformer," said one viewer.
"Was expecting a crackling noise for some reason," added another.
Others wrote: "Why is this so calming?" and "That is just amazing."
Whilst we don't have a 'microscope to zoom inside the Sun,' using the 'Sun's vibrations allows us to see inside of it' added Young.
“We can see huge rivers of solar material flowing around. We are finally starting to understand the layers of the Sun and the complexity.
"That simple sound is giving us a probe inside of a star. I think that’s a pretty cool thing.”
The sounds of the Sun are displayed at the NASA Goddard Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
