Explanation:
What does the solar wind sound like?
A wind
of fast moving particles blows out from
our Sun, and although
space
transmits sound poorly,
particle impact and variable-field data from
NASA's near-Sun
Parker Solar Probe
is being translated into
sound.
The disarming audio track of the featured video recounts several of
these reverberations,
including spooky-sounding Langmuir Waves (heard first), hurricane-sounding
Whistler
Mode Waves (heard next), and hard-to-describe Dispersive Chirping Waves (heard last).
Also impressive is the video's time-lapse visual track which shows
Parker's view to the side of its sun shield,
and where the planets
Earth,
Jupiter,
Mercury and
Venus
appear in succession, interspersed with bursts of
powerful cosmic rays
impacting the imager.
The nature of the solar wind near Mercury is
surprisingly different
from near the Earth, and
much study is underway to better understand the differences.
Discovery + Outreach:
Graduate student research position open for APOD
