This Terrifying Sound Of Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Will Give You Nightmares
According the ESA, Earth’s magnetic field is a complex and dynamic bubble that keeps humans safe from cosmic radiation and charged particles carried by winds from the Sun. When these particles slam into Earth’s magnetic field, the interaction produces the gorgeous blue-green light that is often typical of the aurora borealis. While being able to view the aurora, sometimes as far south as Florida, hearing it is another thing.
The Laschamp event that was recreated happened during a time Earth’s magnetic field was weakened significantly, dropping to a minimum of 5% of its current strength. According to the ESA, this loss of strength allowed more cosmic rays to reach Earth’s atmosphere.
The scientists, who were from the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Centre for Geosciences, mapped the movement of Earth’s magnetic field lines produced during the event, and created a stereo sound version which is what can be heard in the video above.
In a blog post on its website, the ESA remarked, “The soundscape was made using recordings of natural noises like wood creaking and rocks falling, blending them into a familiar and strange, almost alien-like, sounds. The process of transforming the sounds with data is similar to composing music from a score.”
ESA’s Swarm mission, launched in 2013, is comprised of three satellites dedicated to unraveling the mysteries of Earth’s magnetic field. The space agency states that by analyzing the different characteristics of the observed field, Swarm will help scientists garner new insights into the many natural processes, such as those occurring deep inside the planet, to weather in space caused by solar activity.
This was not the first time the data from Swarm was used to recreate the sound of Earth’s magnetic field. The first version was originally played through a 32-speaker system in a public square in Copenhagen. Each speaker represented changes in the magnetic field at different places around the world over the past 100,000 years.
Musician and project supporter Klaus Nielsen, from the Technical Unversity of Denmark, remarked about the first recreation of the sound of Earth’s magnetic field, “The rumbling of Earth’s magnetic field is accompanied by a representation of a geomagnetic storm that resulted from a solar flare on 3 November 2011, and indeed it sounds pretty scary.”
