“Audio analysis could add a new dimension to our understanding of these waves,” Li said.

“Even after decades of study, we still have a lot of questions about how they work.” One unknown the researchers hope to explore is why some plasma waves interact with their space environment more strongly than others. “These plasma waves are really complicated,” said Wen Li, an astronomer at Boston University who is not involved in the HARP project. But studying them has proved challenging in the past because even computers struggle to separate out the many simultaneous vibrations among the background noise of space. “Audio analysis could add a new dimension to our understanding of plasma waves.”Ĭharacterizing plasma waves could help improve predictions of space weather hazards.

Stunning aurorae, seen dancing across skies near the poles, is one illustration of how plasma energy carried by solar winds can interact with Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere.īeyond creating colorful light displays, waves generated when our magnetosphere is struck by solar winds also contribute to disruptive space weather, which can pose a risk to satellites, telecommunications, and astronauts. “We’re hoping that the wisdom of the crowd, combined with our highly tuned human sense of hearing, will help us pick out the features of these waves,” said Martin Archer, a space physicist with Imperial College London and one of the scientists behind the project-Heliophysics Audified: Resonances in Plasmas ( HARP).īy classifying the different types of vibrations, the researchers hope to get a better picture of how they influence Earth’s magnetic field. This haunting melody is too low in pitch for us to hear, but researchers have turned these sounds into something audible and are now asking the public to help listen to the din of space.

“We’re hoping that the wisdom of the crowd, combined with our highly tuned human sense of hearing, will help us pick out the features of these waves.” Gusty and energetic solar winds can send ultralow-frequency waves quivering along the magnetic field lines that surround our planet-just like a harp string when plucked. It’s buzzing with charged particles expelled from the Sun and lofted along by solar winds.

Pick Me by May Archer