December 11, 2023

This Week in Amateur Radio

North America's Premiere Amateur Radio News Magazine

NASA’s HARP project captures eerie sounds of Earth’s magnetosphere

NASA’s new sound clip, released on April 17, offers an eerie glimpse into the strange and unsettling sounds that Earth’s magnetic field produces. The clip contains a series of high-pitched whistles, crunches, and whooshes that are created when waves of plasma from the sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field. This phenomenon causes the magnetic field lines to vibrate like the strings of a harp, which gives off a distinct and otherworldly sound.

The HARP project, which is responsible for creating the sound clip, is part of NASA’s Heliophysics Audified: Resonances in Plasmas or HARP initiative. This project aims to convert data about Earth’s magnetosphere into audible sounds to help researchers identify irregularities in the plasma shield. Citizen scientists can listen to these sounds and highlight any unusual patterns. This could lead to new discoveries about the magnetosphere and the sun.

Read more – Interesting Engineering: https://bit.ly/41Q2tAU