Stars May Generate Sound, Physicists Say

An international team of scientists headed by Dr G. Ravindra Kumar of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, has provided experimental evidence that stars may produce sound.

Nerd stuff...

Link to article.

Terahertz Acoustics in Hot Dense Laser Plasmas

Abstract:

We present a hitherto unobserved facet of hydrodynamics, namely the generation of an ultrahigh frequency acoustic disturbance in the terahertz frequency range, whose origins are purely hydrodynamic in nature. The disturbance is caused by differential flow velocities down a density gradient in a plasma created by a 30 fs, 800 nm high-intensity laser (∼5×10 16   W/cm 2 ). The picosecond scale observations enable us to capture these high frequency oscillations (1.9±0.6  THz ) which are generated as a consequence of the rapid heating of the medium by the laser. Adoption of two complementary techniques, namely pump-probe reflectometry and pump-probe Doppler spectrometry provides unambiguous identification of this terahertz acoustic disturbance. Hydrodynamic simulations well reproduce the observations, offering insight into this process.

The vacuum of outer space transmits sound very poorly. Go ahead and scream as loud as you want because without air emanating from your lungs to pass over your vocal cords, you are about as loud as an entire frat house passed out from last nights binge drinking.

When examining the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target, Dr Kumar and his colleagues from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the University of York, UK, observed something unexpected.

I love when discoveries are found this way. There is always a certain element of luck in science where you're hoping to achieve a desired result. It was only by chance that Sir Isaac Newton had been sitting in his orchard, reflecting on what he had witnessed, all because his university was shut down due to an outbreak of the plague.

They realized that in the trillionth of a second after the laser strikes, plasma flowed rapidly from areas of high density to more stagnant regions of low density, in such a way that it created something like a traffic jam. Plasma piled up at the interface between the high and low density regions, generating a series of pressure pulses: a sound wave.

These sound waves exist in the terahertz range which equal about a trillion hertz. Not only was the sound unexpected, it come close to breaking the record as the highest frequency ever measured. Imagine 6 million times higher than the highest sound able to be heard by mammals. Wowzers!

“One of the few locations in nature where we believe this effect would occur is at the surface of stars,” said co-author Dr John Pasley of the University of York and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory’s Central Laser Facility.

Blue hypergiant stars currently set the record for the hottest star known to man and can be more than 100 times the mass of our sun. Eta Carinae is said to be 180 times the radius of our own star with surface temps coming in around 40,000 Kelvin or 71,540 Fahrenheit. I'd imagine those stars would produce some pretty good tunes!

“This showed that we had discovered a new way of generating sound from fluid flows. Similar situations could occur in plasma flowing around stars.”

It appears the stars above our heads have been talking this whole time. Since no two stars identical, I thought about our life here on earth and how unique we all are. We all have our own story or song to sing which makes us special in our own right. Now, if only there was someone around with big enough ears to listen. I hope you enjoyed the read.

a reply to: eisegesis

Im sorry but seriously...is this new? Of course stars/factorories make sound...

Hey wow...it was discovered fire makes heat

I think the article's making a bit of a stretch calling terahertz waves 'sound'.

It's like saying gamma rays are just like nice soft sunlight, only very blue.

It's true, but it sort of stretches the point.

I wonder how much money was spent on this research.
I always kinda thought there would be sound out there, it's good to know I'm right.

originally posted by: weirdguy
I always kinda thought there would be sound out there, it's good to know I'm right.

Well, there's actually not. What the article says is that if you rapidly heat plasma with a laser, you get THz vibrations in it. That's not going to be audible even if your head was in it, much less in space.

These articles are written to sort of exaggerate some part of what was done to be more appealing to people. Think of the "stars make sound" part as click bait.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: weirdguy
I always kinda thought there would be sound out there, it's good to know I'm right.

Well, there's actually not. What the article says is that if you rapidly heat plasma with a laser, you get THz vibrations in it. That's not going to be audible even if your head was in it, much less in space.

These articles are written to sort of exaggerate some part of what was done to be more appealing to people. Think of the "stars make sound" part as click bait.

It's how the sound is produced that is significant. Excited plasma making sweet, sweet love using some of the most powerful lasers in existence. The "sound" is what sells though.

Maybe someone should just hit me over the head with a chart of the electromagnetic spectrum and get it over with.

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: weirdguy
I always kinda thought there would be sound out there, it's good to know I'm right.

Well, there's actually not. What the article says is that if you rapidly heat plasma with a laser, you get THz vibrations in it. That's not going to be audible even if your head was in it, much less in space.

These articles are written to sort of exaggerate some part of what was done to be more appealing to people. Think of the "stars make sound" part as click bait.

oh crap, I hate it when that happens.

originally posted by: eisegesis
It's how the sound is produced that is significant. Excited plasma making sweet, sweet love using some of the most powerful lasers in existence.

Well, if I ever end up needing 2THz vibrations and I can either invoke a star or a fs laser, I'll know what to turn to.

You never know. I've seen people using 60-90GHz acoustics before in the lab but they dissipate so fast it's tough to find a great use.

eta: However, it's great in that the models predicted it and they found it almost exactly as expected. That gives you a bit of validation for the model. And for all I know, there may be a dandy thing you can do with it. It's definitely not my field.

Astrophysicist Dr Fiorella Terenzi already experimented with this kind of thing.....even released
a CD titled Music From The Galaxies....which won some kind of award. Basically what she did was hook
up a computer to a radiotelescope, and use custom software to convert the signals to audio.

check out her site for more:

www.fiorella.com

a reply to: moonweed

Astrophysicist Dr Fiorella Terenzi already experimented with this kind of thing

Sorry, not even close.

Basically what she did was hook up a computer to a radiotelescope, and use custom software to convert the signals to audio.

Can you point out the similarities between the article in the OP and your link?

originally posted by: moonweed
Astrophysicist Dr Fiorella Terenzi already experimented with this kind of thing..

Well, again, it's one of those things that sounds appealing but it's not quite as billed.

Her records had nothing at all to do with sound from other galaxies, since none can reach us through a vacuum, and certainly even if space transmitted sound as well as air, it would never reach us before the end of the Universe.

What she did was make some arbitrary transform between radio signals and sound, and rendered radio noise as something you could hear acoustically.

eta: NASA does this sort of thing a lot, it confuses the hell out of people. But I suppose it is an attempt to make what you're doing more understandable to taxpayers in that case, or to make some spending money in Terenzi's case.

Musical Creation! Stars are the Parents of the solar system, overall, some strays may come in, but they produce everything in it and all the elements. MOM.

Should read all the free online books pdf's by Walter Russell!!!!


Walter Russell Vortex Video: The Cosmology of Twin Opposing Electro-Magnetic Vortices


The Secret of Light 01

www.dataisnature.com...
The Musicality of The Two-Way, Magnetic-Electric Thought-Wave Universe of Walter Russell

a reply to: Unity_99

OMG!!!

Another Walter Russell fan! He is one of my idols and I've read all his books. I want to do a super thread on him so bad, but I have to wrap my head around everything clearly if I want to do him justice.

High five times a million!

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: eisegesis

Im sorry but seriously...is this new? Of course stars/factorories make sound...

Hey wow...it was discovered fire makes heat

my first thoughts too.
WOW, a mass of super heated plasma churning so viciously that it periodically ejects part of it's mass at high speed isn't completely silent, really?

does that mean the sun can technically let out a Fart

hmm, that sounds kind familiar...


"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

(Job 38:4-7, KJV)

a reply to: eisegesis

More, different, older:

Star's song captured by scientists

Scientists have captured the 'song' of a distant star as part of new research that is providing insights into what lies beneath its surface.

..."Essentially stars resonate like a huge musical instrument. Stars make sounds naturally but we can't hear this as it is has to travel through space.
"Like a musical instrument, stars are not uniformly solid all the way to their core, so the sound gets trapped inside the outer layers and oscillates around inside.
"This makes the star vibrate causing it to expand and contract. We can detect this visually because the star gets brighter and dimmer and so we can reconstruct the sounds produced from these vibrations."

From Hinduism:

Sound (nada) is believed to be the heart of the process of creation. In Hinduism, the sacred syllable Om embodies the essence of the universe - it is the "hum" of the atoms and the music of the spheres - and sound in general represents the primal energy that holds the material world together.

[Sorry. Couldn't help that last bit. Please forgive me. ; ) ]

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: eisegesis

Im sorry but seriously...is this new? Of course stars/factorories make sound...

Hey wow...it was discovered fire makes heat

Exactly. If we are to consider the very general question "would a star make a sound", the answer would certainly be "yes".

I understand the whole "no sound in space" stuff, but let's consider this thought experiment: If I was able to withstand the heat and other extremes, and I stuck my head inside a star, the vibrations being made by that star would travel through my head, to my eardrums, and generate a sound.

If an Apollo astronaut stuck his helmet to the surface of the moon, and another astronaut stomped his foot on the ground near him, the vibrations of that stomping would travel through the ground, through the helmet of the astronaut with his ear to the ground, through the air inside the astronaut's helmet, then to his eardrum -- where he would hear the sound of the astronaut stomping his foot.

originally posted by: MasterOfTheDamned
my first thoughts too.
WOW, a mass of super heated plasma churning so viciously that it periodically ejects part of it's mass at high speed isn't completely silent, really?

Really. Within the gas of the star itself, I'm sure there's sound. Out in space away from the star, not one bit.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
I understand the whole "no sound in space" stuff, but let's consider this thought experiment: If I was able to withstand the heat and other extremes, and I stuck my head inside a star, the vibrations being made by that star would travel through my head, to my eardrums, and generate a sound.

Yet, there's no sound in space, because sound requires a compressible medium. And you don't have any outside the star. So, no sounds of stars in space.

In the OP, you not only couldn't hear some putative "singing of stars", the "sound" they're talking about is at 60 friggin' THz. That's not quite what you'd call sound either, without violent stretching to make a point.