Listen to the sound of solar plasma as it hits the Earth

The Earth's magnetic environment is filled with a symphony of sounds that the human ear cannot perceive.

Ultralow-frequency waves around the planet "reflect the dramatic relationship between Earth and the sun," NASA says.

Now, as part of a new project by citizen scientists, HARP (Heliophysics Audified: Resonances in Plasmas), these silent waves have turned into the sounds of crunching and whistling.

Image Credit & Copyright: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Imaging Lab

“What excites me most about the project?HARP is an opportunity for citizen scientists to make new discoveries in heliophysics research using audio analysis, said Michael Hartinger, the project's principal investigator and a heliophysicist at the Colorado Space Science Institute. “We need their help to understand the complex patterns in the near-Earth space environment.”

Space between the Earth and the Sunis actually not empty, but filled with a mixture of charged particles—plasma. It “flies” from the Sun and is thrown out in a constant flow, which scientists call the solar wind. When this solar plasma collides with Earth, it causes the magnetic field lines and plasma around the planet to vibrate like the strings of a harp, producing ultra-low frequency waves.

You can hear them in the video below.

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