Listen to the 'Singing' Sun

Wow, now THIS is exciting. You've heard of the ancient, Medieval concept of the Music of the Spheres?* Musicians have intuitivley known for centuries that what we do, the "materials" we work with, have far greater connections to universal operations of matter, energy and substance than merely emotional expression.

The roots and resonances of music reach deeply into the human ( and the physical world's?) situation. Is life merely a play acted on a stage, as Shakespeare said, "all sound and fury, signifying nothing?" oOo Or does the analogy of music woven throughout creation show that there is truly deep meaning, both within us and surrounding us, almost infinitely?
[ What is the Harmony of Life? ] oOo

SPACE.com

Thu Apr 19, 11:30 AM ET, Jeanna Bryner

Astronomers have recorded heavenly music bellowed out by the Sun's atmosphere.

oOo Snagging orchestra seats for this solar symphony would be fruitless, however, as the frequency of the sound waves is below the human hearing threshold. While humans can make out sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz, the solar sound waves are on the order
of milli-hertz--a thousandth of a hertz.

The study,presented this week at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Lancashire, England, reveals that the looping magnetic fields along the Sun's outer regions, called the corona, carry magnetic sound waves in a similar manner to musical instruments such as guitars
or pipe organs. oOo oOo

Making music

Robertus von Fay-Siebenurgen of the Solar Physics and Space Plasma Research Center at the University of Sheffield and his colleagues combined information gleaned
from sun-orbiting satellites with theoretical models of solar processes, such as coronal mass
ejections.

They found that explosive events at the Sun's surface appear to trigger acoustic waves that bounce back and forth between both ends of the loops, a phenomenon known as a standing wave. oOo oOo

In the cosmic equivalent of a guitar pick, so-called microflares at the base of loops
could be plucking the magnetic loops and setting the sound waves in motion, the
researchers speculate. oOoWhile solar flares are the largest explosions in the solar system, microflares are a
million times smaller but much more frequent; both phenomena are now thought to
funnel heat into the Sun's outer atmosphere.

The acoustic waves can be extremely energetic, reaching heights of tens of miles,
and can travel at rapid speeds of 45,000 to 90,000 miles per hour. "These
[explosions] release energy equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs," von Fay-Siebenburgen said.

"These
energies are plucking these magnetic strings or standing pipes, [the acoustic phenomenon utilized in production of the extreme range of audible pipe organ tone] oOo which set up standing waves--exactly the same waves you see on a guitar string," vonFay-Siebenburgen told SPACE.com. The "sound booms" decay to silence in
less than an hour, dissipating in the hot solar corona.

Remember another recent story about sound frequencies in space-- that our galaxy might be emitting the Ur "groundbass" frequency equivalent to a sub-sub-sub acoustic B-flat tone?! Sounds Astounding! :-O oOo


* Check out some "Music of the Spheres" concerts here.

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