What does the sun sound like?

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Date: 12 Sep 2006 16:06:55
From: Radium
Subject: What does the sun sound like?

Hi:

If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
they sound like?

Thanks,

Radium

Date: 13 Sep 2006 05:06:00
From: robert casey
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

>
> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> they sound like?
>
>
Just wait about 5 billion years and the Sun's atmosphere will expand out
to reach us. Come to think of it, if all of the Sun is gas, it's all
atmosphere....

It probably sounds like a really loud roar.

Date: 12 Sep 2006 18:12:29
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Sorcerer wrote:
> "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:1158102415.645235.283350@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>

Date: 13 Sep 2006 08:30:36
From: Sorcerer
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

"Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote in message
news:1158109949.265972.145920@e63g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...

Date: 13 Sep 2006 01:08:58
From: Sorcerer
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

"Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote in message
news:1158102415.645235.283350@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...

Date: 12 Sep 2006 16:46:11
From: canopus56
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Radium wrote:
> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> they sound like?

You don't have to wait for the Earth's atmosphere to expand. Here's a
short synthetic audio clip of the sound of seimic waves moving through
the Sun -
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/solarsounds/solarpics/3tones_21sec.mpg
in -
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/solarsounds/images.htm
at -
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/solarsounds/solarsounds.htm

When the waves reach the surface of the Sun, they can trigger solar
flares and "sun quakes" on the surface that look like this -

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/spacesci/solarsounds/solarpics/film3.gif
1.9Mb

- Canopus56

Date: 13 Sep 2006 01:44:00
From: Sjouke Burry
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Date: 14 Sep 2006 06:50:07
From: reconair
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

http://soi.stanford.edu/results/sounds.html

Cheers
"Sjouke Burry" <burrynulnulfour@ppllaanneett.nnlll > wrote in message
news:45074641$0$23339$ba620dc5@text.nova.planet.nl...
> Radium wrote:
>> Hi:
>>
>> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
>> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
>> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
>> they sound like?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Radium
>>
> "sun sondwaves" ,179000 google hits.

Date: 12 Sep 2006 16:31:46
From: Richard Adams
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Radium wrote:
> Hi:
>
> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> they sound like?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Radium

I remember an experiment, years ago, where I had a phototransistor
hooked up to a small amplifier and could go out into the sunlight and
listen to interesting sounds caused by photons striking the transistor.
As for sound on the surface(?) or in the atmosphere of the sun, I
expect it would sound like in inside of a cyclone.

Date: 13 Sep 2006 11:32:05
From: TopBanana
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

On 12 Sep 2006 16:06:55 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote:

>If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
>the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
>sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
>they sound like?

Something like a falling tree I should think.

Date: 13 Sep 2006 19:09:18
From: Gareth Slee
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

TopBanana <TopBanana@nospam.nospam > wrote:

> On 12 Sep 2006 16:06:55 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>
> >If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> >the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> >sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> >they sound like?
>
> Something like a falling tree I should think.

Ah... but if it falls and no ones there, does it make a sound?

--
Gareth Slee

Date: 13 Sep 2006 23:45:36
From: OG
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

"Gareth Slee" <gax.slee@ntlworld.com > wrote in message
news:1hlmahs.aa22u6cslnvtN%gax.slee@ntlworld.com...
> TopBanana <TopBanana@nospam.nospam> wrote:
>
>> On 12 Sep 2006 16:06:55 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>>
>> >If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
>> >the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
>> >sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
>> >they sound like?
>>
>> Something like a falling tree I should think.
>
>
> Ah... but if it falls and no ones there, does it make a sound?
>

Hang on, I've got a cat in this box; I'll see if he heard anything.

Date: 13 Sep 2006 01:39:38
From: Wally
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Radium wrote:

> Hi:
>
> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> they sound like?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Radium

Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods? Whati f the
answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening to the winds
etc,
which happens to be moving precisely because of Solar activity
distributed
over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell me!

Date: 13 Sep 2006 08:13:10
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <4507A7AA.B1CDD92B@ai5.net >, Wally <woodfield@ai5.net> wrote:
>
>
>Radium wrote:
>
>> Hi:
>>
>> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
>> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
>> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
>> they sound like?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Radium
>
>Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
>The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
>before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods?

We already have such a natural sound - it's called "thunder"......
The weekday Thursday is the "day of Thor", the "god of thunder"....

>Whati f the
>answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening to the winds
>etc,
>which happens to be moving precisely because of Solar activity
>distributed
>over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell me!

Perhaps he was just curious and wanted to know how we might
perceive it? You seem a little provoked by the question itself....

Anyway....

It would most likely be inaudible infra-sound, i.e. sound with
frequencies well below 20 Hz. What does distant thunder sound like?
Quite low-pitched, like a rumble - right? And that distant thunder is
just only about 10 km away -- the effect would be even more pronounced
for a source of sound some 150 million km away!!!!

Another factor to consider: the sound waves would need some 140 years
to propagate from the Sun to the Earth! This is based on the
(unrealistic) assumption of a speed-of-sound the same as in out
atmosphere. But an atmosphere reaching as far as the Sun would
probably consist mostly of hydrogen, and also be much hotter. These
two effects would make the sound propagate much faster - but it would
still need at least some 10-15 years to propagate from the Sun to the
Earth!

So if sound waves really could propagate all the way from the Sun to
the Earth, the "solar sounds" we would "hear" now (or, more likely,
detect with equipment sensitive to infrasound) would have been
generated about one sunspot cycle ago!

Perhaps the "sounds from the Sun" would be similar to (but maybe
weaker than) the changing air pressure when high pressure and low
pressure centers pass by us. Since sound is nothing but changes in
air pressure, these slow changes in air pressure can be considered a
very low-pitched "sound" with a cycle time of several days, i.e. with
a frequency of a few micro-Hertz!

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 13 Sep 2006 14:09:56
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Chris L Peterson wrote:
> On 13 Sep 2006 12:50:33 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>
> >Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
> >hearing range?
>
> Since your original question was "What does the sun sound like?" I think
> it's fair to exclude sound outside the range of human hearing. After
> all, most of the sound all around us here on the Earth is similarly
> outside our hearing range. It's sound, but it doesn't sound like
> anything at all.
>
> _________________________________________________
>
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatory
> http://www.cloudbait.com

Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
and 20 khz?

Date: 13 Sep 2006 21:28:04
From: Chris L Peterson
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

On 13 Sep 2006 14:09:56 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote:

>Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
>and 20 khz?

I'm sure they do. That's the simple question. The more difficult one is
figuring out what we'd actually hear after that sound propagated 93
million miles through the atmosphere you propose.

My gut tells me we'd hear something like static (white noise, or
weighted noise). It also tells me the amplitude might be sufficient to
rupture cells.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Date: 13 Sep 2006 23:05:51
From: George Dishman
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

"Chris L Peterson" <clp@alumni.caltech.edu > wrote in message
news:intgg2hjgbl2m6kjgb2a9ttlqp3mtcnik0@4ax.com...
> On 13 Sep 2006 14:09:56 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>
>>Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
>>and 20 khz?
>
> I'm sure they do. That's the simple question. The more difficult one is
> figuring out what we'd actually hear after that sound propagated 93
> million miles through the atmosphere you propose.
>
> My gut tells me we'd hear something like static (white noise, or
> weighted noise). It also tells me the amplitude might be sufficient to
> rupture cells.

Have a listen:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/singing.html

It is speeded into the audible range.

George

Date: 14 Sep 2006 20:14:39
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <ee9uha$2c8$1@news.freedom2surf.net >,
George Dishman <george@briar.demon.co.uk > wrote:

> "Chris L Peterson" <clp@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote in message
> news:intgg2hjgbl2m6kjgb2a9ttlqp3mtcnik0@4ax.com...
>> On 13 Sep 2006 14:09:56 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
>>> and 20 khz?
>>
>> I'm sure they do. That's the simple question. The more difficult one is
>> figuring out what we'd actually hear after that sound propagated 93
>> million miles through the atmosphere you propose.
>>
>> My gut tells me we'd hear something like static (white noise, or
>> weighted noise). It also tells me the amplitude might be sufficient to
>> rupture cells.
>
> Have a listen:
>
> http://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/singing.html
>
> It is speeded into the audible range.
>
> George

Yep, it's speeded up by a factor of 42,000. So if our ears had
an audible range not of 20 Hz to 20 kHz but instead of 0.5 mHz
(milli-Hertz) to 0.5 Hz, then that might be what we would hear.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 14 Sep 2006 19:43:24
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <1158181795.961348.55360@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com >,
Radium <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote:

> Chris L Peterson wrote:
>> On 13 Sep 2006 12:50:33 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
>> >hearing range?
>>
>> Since your original question was "What does the sun sound like?" I think
>> it's fair to exclude sound outside the range of human hearing. After
>> all, most of the sound all around us here on the Earth is similarly
>> outside our hearing range. It's sound, but it doesn't sound like
>> anything at all.
>>
>> _________________________________________________
>>
>> Chris L Peterson
>> Cloudbait Observatory
>> http://www.cloudbait.com
>
> Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
> and 20 khz?

A source of sound of some wavelength cannot be much larger than the
wavelength itself. The wavelength of audible sound varies between
some 17 meters and 17 millimeters. The energy producing regious
of the Sun is much larger than that.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 14 Sep 2006 20:25:07
From: Chris L Peterson
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:43:24 GMT, pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:

>> Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
>> and 20 khz?
>
>A source of sound of some wavelength cannot be much larger than the
>wavelength itself. The wavelength of audible sound varies between
>some 17 meters and 17 millimeters. The energy producing regious
>of the Sun is much larger than that.

But those regions are made up of subregions, with who-knows-what sort of
turbulence at (presumably) many scales.

The Sun is an emitter of VLF energy, including the 20Hz - 20 kHz range.
I assume that energy is produced by some mechanism vibrating charged
particles in that frequency range. Presumably that vibration also
produces sound. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't sound energy in
the Sun's interior extending to very high frequencies (above human
hearing). That's not to say that most of the acoustic energy isn't found
at subsonic frequencies, of course. But that can be ignored when asking
what the Sun sounds like (except for the possibility of physiological
damage).

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Date: 15 Sep 2006 07:43:18
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <95ejg21l2k5id94jcng1jm9583a6ld60nu@4ax.com >,
Chris L Peterson <clp@alumni.caltech.edu > wrote:

> On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:43:24 GMT, pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:
>
>>> Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
>>> and 20 khz?
>>
>> A source of sound of some wavelength cannot be much larger than the
>> wavelength itself. The wavelength of audible sound varies between
>> some 17 meters and 17 millimeters. The energy producing regious
>> of the Sun is much larger than that.
>
> But those regions are made up of subregions, with who-knows-what sort of
> turbulence at (presumably) many scales.
>
> The Sun is an emitter of VLF energy, including the 20Hz - 20 kHz range.
> I assume that energy is produced by some mechanism vibrating charged
> particles in that frequency range. Presumably that vibration also
> produces sound. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't sound energy in
> the Sun's interior extending to very high frequencies (above human
> hearing). That's not to say that most of the acoustic energy isn't found
> at subsonic frequencies, of course. But that can be ignored when asking
> what the Sun sounds like (except for the possibility of physiological
> damage).

True - within the Sun there are probably a lot of high-pitched sounds.
But if there was a continuous atmosphere from Sun to Earth, with the
same density as our atmosphere near ground level (as was originally
suggested), I very much doubt these high-pitched sounds would survuve
the propagation all the way to the Earth without being attenuated below
what we can hear.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 13 Sep 2006 12:52:02
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Radium wrote:
> Sorcerer wrote:
> > "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote in message
> > news:1158102415.645235.283350@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> >

Date: 13 Sep 2006 21:31:18
From: Sorcerer
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

"Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote in message
news:1158177122.021762.241170@d34g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...

Date: 13 Sep 2006 12:50:33
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Paul Schlyter wrote:
> In article <4507A7AA.B1CDD92B@ai5.net>, Wally <woodfield@ai5.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Radium wrote:
> >
> >> Hi:
> >>
> >> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> >> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> >> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> >> they sound like?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> Radium
> >
> >Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
> >The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
> >before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods?
>
> We already have such a natural sound - it's called "thunder"......
> The weekday Thursday is the "day of Thor", the "god of thunder"....
>
> >Whati f the
> >answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening to the winds
> >etc,
> >which happens to be moving precisely because of Solar activity
> >distributed
> >over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell me!
>
> Perhaps he was just curious and wanted to know how we might
> perceive it? You seem a little provoked by the question itself....
>
>
> Anyway....
>

> It would most likely be inaudible infra-sound, i.e. sound with
> frequencies well below 20 Hz. What does distant thunder sound like?
> Quite low-pitched, like a rumble - right?

Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
hearing range? AFAIK, by the time the sound reaches earth, the
frequency and amplitude would probably decrease due to dissapation of
energy.

> And that distant thunder is
> just only about 10 km away -- the effect would be even more pronounced
> for a source of sound some 150 million km away!!!!

The distance would probably soften the loudness of the sound. However,
the sounds generated by the sun would probably be louder [at least at
the source] than lightning from the same distance because the sun has
so much more power than lightning.

> Another factor to consider: the sound waves would need some 140 years
> to propagate from the Sun to the Earth! This is based on the
> (unrealistic) assumption of a speed-of-sound the same as in out
> atmosphere. But an atmosphere reaching as far as the Sun would
> probably consist mostly of hydrogen, and also be much hotter. These
> two effects would make the sound propagate much faster - but it would
> still need at least some 10-15 years to propagate from the Sun to the
> Earth!
>
> So if sound waves really could propagate all the way from the Sun to
> the Earth, the "solar sounds" we would "hear" now (or, more likely,
> detect with equipment sensitive to infrasound) would have been
> generated about one sunspot cycle ago!

> Perhaps the "sounds from the Sun" would be similar to (but maybe
> weaker than) the changing air pressure when high pressure and low
> pressure centers pass by us. Since sound is nothing but changes in
> air pressure, these slow changes in air pressure can be considered a
> very low-pitched "sound" with a cycle time of several days, i.e. with
> a frequency of a few micro-Hertz!

Would the sounds be similar to the "cosmic noise" we can hear on
equipment designed for radio-astronomy? These devices can receiving
radio signals produced by the sun and increase the frequency to where
it would be audible to the human ear.

>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
> e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
> WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 13 Sep 2006 19:59:33
From: Chris L Peterson
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

On 13 Sep 2006 12:50:33 -0700, "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote:

>Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
>hearing range?

Since your original question was "What does the sun sound like?" I think
it's fair to exclude sound outside the range of human hearing. After
all, most of the sound all around us here on the Earth is similarly
outside our hearing range. It's sound, but it doesn't sound like
anything at all.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Date: 14 Sep 2006 01:18:05
From: robert casey
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

>
> Since your original question was "What does the sun sound like?" I think
> it's fair to exclude sound outside the range of human hearing. After
> all, most of the sound all around us here on the Earth is similarly
> outside our hearing range. It's sound, but it doesn't sound like
> anything at all.
>

That brings up that silly-assed high school English class question:
"If a tree in a forest falls over but nobody is around to hear it, did
it make a sound?". Answer is in your definition of the word "sound".
Some definitions involve a set of human ears...

As the "surface" of the Sun is constantly churning over (like as in a
pot of boiling water), it probably sounds somewhat like the rushing
noise from a smokestack spewing lots of pollution, or like a waterfall.
Or a nuke bomb just after it goes off. Probably extremely loud.

I probably remember this incorrectly, but doesn't the Sun's corona get
superheated from acoustic energy (sound)?

Date: 14 Sep 2006 03:46:33
From: Chris L Peterson
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 01:18:05 GMT, robert casey <wa2ise@ix.netcom.com >
wrote:

>That brings up that silly-assed high school English class question:
>"If a tree in a forest falls over but nobody is around to hear it, did
>it make a sound?". Answer is in your definition of the word "sound".
>Some definitions involve a set of human ears...

But by far the most common definition is simply compressional waves
traveling in some medium, without regard to human ears, especially in
the scientific context I assume given the forums where the question was
asked.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Date: 14 Sep 2006 04:43:29
From: Ahmed Ouahi, Architect
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.

-- Walt Whitman

--
Ahmed Ouahi, Architect
Best Regards!

"robert casey" <wa2ise@ix.netcom.com > wrote in message
news:h52Og.11634$xQ1.5198@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> >
> > Since your original question was "What does the sun sound like?" I think
> > it's fair to exclude sound outside the range of human hearing. After
> > all, most of the sound all around us here on the Earth is similarly
> > outside our hearing range. It's sound, but it doesn't sound like
> > anything at all.
> >
>
> That brings up that silly-assed high school English class question:
> "If a tree in a forest falls over but nobody is around to hear it, did
> it make a sound?". Answer is in your definition of the word "sound".
> Some definitions involve a set of human ears...
>
> As the "surface" of the Sun is constantly churning over (like as in a
> pot of boiling water), it probably sounds somewhat like the rushing
> noise from a smokestack spewing lots of pollution, or like a waterfall.
> Or a nuke bomb just after it goes off. Probably extremely loud.
>
> I probably remember this incorrectly, but doesn't the Sun's corona get
> superheated from acoustic energy (sound)?

Date: 14 Sep 2006 20:14:39
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <1158177033.594706.232160@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com >,
Radium <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote:

> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>> In article <4507A7AA.B1CDD92B@ai5.net>, Wally <woodfield@ai5.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>Radium wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi:
>>>>
>>>> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
>>>> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
>>>> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
>>>> they sound like?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Radium
>>>
>>> Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
>>> The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
>>> before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods?
>>
>> We already have such a natural sound - it's called "thunder"......
>> The weekday Thursday is the "day of Thor", the "god of thunder"....
>>
>>> What if the answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening
>>> to the winds etc, which happens to be moving precisely because of
>>> Solar activity distributed over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell
>>> me!
>>
>> Perhaps he was just curious and wanted to know how we might
>> perceive it? You seem a little provoked by the question itself....
>>
>>
>> Anyway....
>>
>
>> It would most likely be inaudible infra-sound, i.e. sound with
>> frequencies well below 20 Hz. What does distant thunder sound like?
>> Quite low-pitched, like a rumble - right?
>
> Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
> hearing range? AFAIK, by the time the sound reaches earth, the
> frequency and amplitude would probably decrease due to dissapation of
> energy.

At the Sun, the sound could very well be high-pitched. But
high-pitched sound fade away faster in the air than low-pitched sound.
That's why a nearby thunderstorm sounds more high-pitched than a
distant thunderstorm. And that's also why I believe the only
sound which would survive propagation through 150 million kilometers
of air would be ultra-low-pitched sounds we cannot hear: infra-sound.

>> And that distant thunder is just only about 10 km away -- the effect
>> would be even more pronounced for a source of sound some 150 million
>> km away!!!!
>
> The distance would probably soften the loudness of the sound.

A nearby thunderstorm sounds not only louder but also more
high-pitched than a distant thunderstorm.

> However, the sounds generated by the sun would probably be louder
> [at least at the source] than lightning from the same distance because
> the sun has so much more power than lightning.

:-) ....I fully agree with you that if the Sun was only some 10
kilometers away, it would most likely produce an extremely loud
noise.... :-))))))

However, your "same distance" option is not relevant here: a distant
thunderstorm which still is audible is only some 10 km away, while
the Sun is 15 million times more distant than that!

>> Another factor to consider: the sound waves would need some 140 years
>> to propagate from the Sun to the Earth! This is based on the
>> (unrealistic) assumption of a speed-of-sound the same as in out
>> atmosphere. But an atmosphere reaching as far as the Sun would
>> probably consist mostly of hydrogen, and also be much hotter. These
>> two effects would make the sound propagate much faster - but it would
>> still need at least some 10-15 years to propagate from the Sun to the
>> Earth!
>>
>> So if sound waves really could propagate all the way from the Sun to
>> the Earth, the "solar sounds" we would "hear" now (or, more likely,
>> detect with equipment sensitive to infrasound) would have been
>> generated about one sunspot cycle ago!
>
>> Perhaps the "sounds from the Sun" would be similar to (but maybe
>> weaker than) the changing air pressure when high pressure and low
>> pressure centers pass by us. Since sound is nothing but changes in
>> air pressure, these slow changes in air pressure can be considered a
>> very low-pitched "sound" with a cycle time of several days, i.e. with
>> a frequency of a few micro-Hertz!
>
> Would the sounds be similar to the "cosmic noise" we can hear on
> equipment designed for radio-astronomy? These devices can receiving
> radio signals produced by the sun and increase the frequency to where
> it would be audible to the human ear.

Radio waves and sound waves are not the same thing. Also, radio waves
which we "hear" through our radio telescopes are always processed in
one way or another.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 13 Sep 2006 12:42:46
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Sorcerer wrote:
> "Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote in message
> news:1158102415.645235.283350@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>

Date: 13 Sep 2006 21:24:33
From: Sorcerer
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

"Radium" <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote in message
news:1158176566.426796.15740@e63g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...

Date: 14 Sep 2006 00:36:37
From:
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Date: 14 Sep 2006 00:34:50
From: Wally
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Just for the fun of it once, a friend and I got a large 10ft spherical dish and

put a microphone at the focus, hook up an amp and a recorder and pointed
it at storms approaching. It really was quite a kick. Thunder was unreal!
We gave the tape to a guy who was producing a movie and he loved it.
One warm summer night we hooked it up and pointed at nearby woods and
the grass - have you ever heard crickets at 120 db! ? I swear you could
almost hear worms crawling. Try it sometime. (BTW all credit goes to a
university public radiostation who supplied the old dish).

jerry

Radium wrote:

> Paul Schlyter wrote:
> > In article <4507A7AA.B1CDD92B@ai5.net>, Wally <woodfield@ai5.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >Radium wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi:
> > >>
> > >> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> > >> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> > >> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> > >> they sound like?
> > >>
> > >> Thanks,
> > >>
> > >> Radium
> > >
> > >Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
> > >The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
> > >before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods?
> >
> > We already have such a natural sound - it's called "thunder"......
> > The weekday Thursday is the "day of Thor", the "god of thunder"....
> >
> > >Whati f the
> > >answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening to the winds
> > >etc,
> > >which happens to be moving precisely because of Solar activity
> > >distributed
> > >over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell me!
> >
> > Perhaps he was just curious and wanted to know how we might
> > perceive it? You seem a little provoked by the question itself....
> >
> >
> > Anyway....
> >
>
> > It would most likely be inaudible infra-sound, i.e. sound with
> > frequencies well below 20 Hz. What does distant thunder sound like?
> > Quite low-pitched, like a rumble - right?
>
> Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
> hearing range? AFAIK, by the time the sound reaches earth, the
> frequency and amplitude would probably decrease due to dissapation of
> energy.
>
> > And that distant thunder is
> > just only about 10 km away -- the effect would be even more pronounced
> > for a source of sound some 150 million km away!!!!
>
> The distance would probably soften the loudness of the sound. However,
> the sounds generated by the sun would probably be louder [at least at
> the source] than lightning from the same distance because the sun has
> so much more power than lightning.
>
> > Another factor to consider: the sound waves would need some 140 years
> > to propagate from the Sun to the Earth! This is based on the
> > (unrealistic) assumption of a speed-of-sound the same as in out
> > atmosphere. But an atmosphere reaching as far as the Sun would
> > probably consist mostly of hydrogen, and also be much hotter. These
> > two effects would make the sound propagate much faster - but it would
> > still need at least some 10-15 years to propagate from the Sun to the
> > Earth!
> >
> > So if sound waves really could propagate all the way from the Sun to
> > the Earth, the "solar sounds" we would "hear" now (or, more likely,
> > detect with equipment sensitive to infrasound) would have been
> > generated about one sunspot cycle ago!
>
> > Perhaps the "sounds from the Sun" would be similar to (but maybe
> > weaker than) the changing air pressure when high pressure and low
> > pressure centers pass by us. Since sound is nothing but changes in
> > air pressure, these slow changes in air pressure can be considered a
> > very low-pitched "sound" with a cycle time of several days, i.e. with
> > a frequency of a few micro-Hertz!
>
> Would the sounds be similar to the "cosmic noise" we can hear on
> equipment designed for radio-astronomy? These devices can receiving
> radio signals produced by the sun and increase the frequency to where
> it would be audible to the human ear.
>
> >
> > --
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
> > e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
> > WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 14 Sep 2006 17:48:38
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Paul Schlyter wrote:
> In article <1158177033.594706.232160@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
> Radium <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>
> > Paul Schlyter wrote:
> >> In article <4507A7AA.B1CDD92B@ai5.net>, Wally <woodfield@ai5.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Radium wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi:
> >>>>
> >>>> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> >>>> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> >>>> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> >>>> they sound like?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>>
> >>>> Radium
> >>>
> >>> Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
> >>> The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
> >>> before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods?
> >>
> >> We already have such a natural sound - it's called "thunder"......
> >> The weekday Thursday is the "day of Thor", the "god of thunder"....
> >>
> >>> What if the answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening
> >>> to the winds etc, which happens to be moving precisely because of
> >>> Solar activity distributed over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell
> >>> me!
> >>
> >> Perhaps he was just curious and wanted to know how we might
> >> perceive it? You seem a little provoked by the question itself....
> >>
> >>
> >> Anyway....
> >>
> >
> >> It would most likely be inaudible infra-sound, i.e. sound with
> >> frequencies well below 20 Hz. What does distant thunder sound like?
> >> Quite low-pitched, like a rumble - right?
> >
> > Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
> > hearing range? AFAIK, by the time the sound reaches earth, the
> > frequency and amplitude would probably decrease due to dissapation of
> > energy.
>

> At the Sun, the sound could very well be high-pitched. But
> high-pitched sound fade away faster in the air than low-pitched sound.
> That's why a nearby thunderstorm sounds more high-pitched than a
> distant thunderstorm. And that's also why I believe the only
> sound which would survive propagation through 150 million kilometers
> of air would be ultra-low-pitched sounds we cannot hear: infra-sound.

Elephants may hear this and go into psychogenic shock! They can hear
infrasonic tones way below 10 hz. The infrasound emitted by the sun
would seriously disturb elephants' communications.

> >> And that distant thunder is just only about 10 km away -- the effect
> >> would be even more pronounced for a source of sound some 150 million
> >> km away!!!!
> >
> > The distance would probably soften the loudness of the sound.
>

> A nearby thunderstorm sounds not only louder but also more
> high-pitched than a distant thunderstorm.

True.

> > However, the sounds generated by the sun would probably be louder
> > [at least at the source] than lightning from the same distance because
> > the sun has so much more power than lightning.

> :-) ....I fully agree with you that if the Sun was only some 10
> kilometers away, it would most likely produce an extremely loud
> noise.... :-))))))

The sound we probably be louder than 140 [pain threshold]. But the heat
would probably kill us before we perceive anything.

> However, your "same distance" option is not relevant here: a distant
> thunderstorm which still is audible is only some 10 km away, while
> the Sun is 15 million times more distant than that!

I was comparing the loudness of sound generating by the sun vs. a
lightning strike, if the sun and lightning were the same distance to
us.

If the sun were 10 km away it would probably be much louder [more
decibels] than a lightning strike that was 10 km away.

>
> >> Another factor to consider: the sound waves would need some 140 years
> >> to propagate from the Sun to the Earth! This is based on the
> >> (unrealistic) assumption of a speed-of-sound the same as in out
> >> atmosphere. But an atmosphere reaching as far as the Sun would
> >> probably consist mostly of hydrogen, and also be much hotter. These
> >> two effects would make the sound propagate much faster - but it would
> >> still need at least some 10-15 years to propagate from the Sun to the
> >> Earth!
> >>
> >> So if sound waves really could propagate all the way from the Sun to
> >> the Earth, the "solar sounds" we would "hear" now (or, more likely,
> >> detect with equipment sensitive to infrasound) would have been
> >> generated about one sunspot cycle ago!
> >
> >> Perhaps the "sounds from the Sun" would be similar to (but maybe
> >> weaker than) the changing air pressure when high pressure and low
> >> pressure centers pass by us. Since sound is nothing but changes in
> >> air pressure, these slow changes in air pressure can be considered a
> >> very low-pitched "sound" with a cycle time of several days, i.e. with
> >> a frequency of a few micro-Hertz!
> >
> > Would the sounds be similar to the "cosmic noise" we can hear on
> > equipment designed for radio-astronomy? These devices can receiving
> > radio signals produced by the sun and increase the frequency to where
> > it would be audible to the human ear.

> Radio waves and sound waves are not the same thing. Also, radio waves
> which we "hear" through our radio telescopes are always processed in
> one way or another.

True. The frequency needs to be increased to at least ~20 hz for humans
to perceive it.

At some *extremely-small* level, though the sound emitted by the sun
could probably be 20 hz or above when they would reach earth. It just
that they would be WAY too soft for even the most-sophisticated
equipment [in today's world] to amplify those signals above 0 decibels.

0 decibels = threshold of hearing

So we have to rely on increasing the pitch of the infrasound that the
solar radiotelescopes give us.

>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
> e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
> WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 15 Sep 2006 07:43:18
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <1158281318.390493.269480@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com >,
Radium <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote:

> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>> In article <1158177033.594706.232160@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
>> Radium <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>>>> In article <4507A7AA.B1CDD92B@ai5.net>, Wally <woodfield@ai5.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Radium wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
>>>>>> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
>>>>>> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
>>>>>> they sound like?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Radium
>>>>>
>>>>> Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
>>>>> The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
>>>>> before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods?
>>>>
>>>> We already have such a natural sound - it's called "thunder"......
>>>> The weekday Thursday is the "day of Thor", the "god of thunder"....
>>>>
>>>>> What if the answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening
>>>>> to the winds etc, which happens to be moving precisely because of
>>>>> Solar activity distributed over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell
>>>>> me!
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps he was just curious and wanted to know how we might
>>>> perceive it? You seem a little provoked by the question itself....
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Anyway....
>>>>
>>>
>>>> It would most likely be inaudible infra-sound, i.e. sound with
>>>> frequencies well below 20 Hz. What does distant thunder sound like?
>>>> Quite low-pitched, like a rumble - right?
>>>
>>> Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
>>> hearing range? AFAIK, by the time the sound reaches earth, the
>>> frequency and amplitude would probably decrease due to dissapation of
>>> energy.
>>
>
>> At the Sun, the sound could very well be high-pitched. But
>> high-pitched sound fade away faster in the air than low-pitched sound.
>> That's why a nearby thunderstorm sounds more high-pitched than a
>> distant thunderstorm. And that's also why I believe the only
>> sound which would survive propagation through 150 million kilometers
>> of air would be ultra-low-pitched sounds we cannot hear: infra-sound.
>
> Elephants may hear this and go into psychogenic shock! They can hear
> infrasonic tones way below 10 hz. The infrasound emitted by the sun
> would seriously disturb elephants' communications.

People can experience strong infrasound too. The crew on submarines
sometimes get sick due to infrasound with a frequency of a few Hz
inside the submarine, generated by its engines.

>>> However, the sounds generated by the sun would probably be louder
>>> [at least at the source] than lightning from the same distance because
>>> the sun has so much more power than lightning.
>
>> :-) ....I fully agree with you that if the Sun was only some 10
>> kilometers away, it would most likely produce an extremely loud
>> noise.... :-))))))
>
> The sound we probably be louder than 140 [pain threshold].

When I was a kid, I was taught that the pain threshold was at 110 dB.
Now it's at 140 dB -- did we get that more insensitive to sound?

> But the heat would probably kill us before we perceive anything.
>
>> However, your "same distance" option is not relevant here: a distant
>> thunderstorm which still is audible is only some 10 km away, while
>> the Sun is 15 million times more distant than that!
>
> I was comparing the loudness of sound generating by the sun vs. a
> lightning strike, if the sun and lightning were the same distance to
> us.
>
> If the sun were 10 km away it would probably be much louder [more
> decibels] than a lightning strike that was 10 km away.

We're in full agreement about that! And the reason is simple:
the Sun is so much larger than a thunderstorm.... right? As a
matter of fact, only a very small part of the Sun could be within
10 km from us....

> At some *extremely-small* level, though the sound emitted by the sun
> could probably be 20 hz or above when they would reach earth. It just
> that they would be WAY too soft for even the most-sophisticated
> equipment [in today's world] to amplify those signals above 0 decibels.

That would apply to any frequency: no matter how much it is
attenuated, it will still be above mathematical zero. However, when
the level has been attenuated below the molecular noise at the same
freuqnecy, it makes no practical difference if the level is slightly
above zero or not.....

> 0 decibels = threshold of hearing

I don't think the threshold of hearing is 0 decibels anymore.
Consider all those people going to rock concerts many times during
their youth, permanently damaging their hearing before they get
20.....

Since the pain threshold has increased 30 dB in one generation
(from 110 to 140 dB), isn't it reaonable to also assume that the
threshold of hearing went up by 30 dB as well? That would put
today's threshold of hearing around 30 dB .....

> So we have to rely on increasing the pitch of the infrasound that the
> solar radiotelescopes give us.

...or perhaps the solar radiotelescopes don't have enough resolution
in time to be able to detect variations in the radial velocity at
audible frequencies? Then it's an instrument problem really.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 15 Sep 2006 07:16:33
From: Dan Mckenna
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Radium wrote:
> Hi:
>
> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> they sound like?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Radium
>

Not what you asked for but on topic.
Have a look at:

http://soi.stanford.edu/results/sounds.html

They have sound files produced from 40 days
of doppler imaging. This data requires a 42000 X
speed up to put it in our audio range.

Date: 15 Sep 2006 01:44:26
From: Double-A
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Paul Schlyter wrote:
> In article <95ejg21l2k5id94jcng1jm9583a6ld60nu@4ax.com>,
> Chris L Peterson <clp@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:43:24 GMT, pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:
> >
> >>> Okay. Would the reactions in the sun generate any sound between 20 hz
> >>> and 20 khz?
> >>
> >> A source of sound of some wavelength cannot be much larger than the
> >> wavelength itself. The wavelength of audible sound varies between
> >> some 17 meters and 17 millimeters. The energy producing regious
> >> of the Sun is much larger than that.
> >
> > But those regions are made up of subregions, with who-knows-what sort of
> > turbulence at (presumably) many scales.
> >
> > The Sun is an emitter of VLF energy, including the 20Hz - 20 kHz range.
> > I assume that energy is produced by some mechanism vibrating charged
> > particles in that frequency range. Presumably that vibration also
> > produces sound. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't sound energy in
> > the Sun's interior extending to very high frequencies (above human
> > hearing). That's not to say that most of the acoustic energy isn't found
> > at subsonic frequencies, of course. But that can be ignored when asking
> > what the Sun sounds like (except for the possibility of physiological
> > damage).
>
> True - within the Sun there are probably a lot of high-pitched sounds.
> But if there was a continuous atmosphere from Sun to Earth, with the
> same density as our atmosphere near ground level (as was originally
> suggested), I very much doubt these high-pitched sounds would survuve
> the propagation all the way to the Earth without being attenuated below
> what we can hear.
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
> e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
> WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Sound would diminish with the inverse of the square of the distance
just like light. Even loud sounds here on Earth are difficult to hear
only a few miles away. The Sun would have to be awfully loud to be
heard from 93 million miles away.

Someone said that the Earth would be overheated almost immediately
because of heat convection if there were a continuous atmosphere
between the Earth and the Sun. But as someone else pointed out, it
would take years for sound to get here form the Sun, and so it would
also take years for heat to reach here by convection from the Sun.

Another consideration is what effect that continuous atmosphere would
have on the Sun's radiant energy. Light passes through a small amount
of water, but miles under the ocean everything is black. Just because
our 100 miles or so of atmosphere is transparent to light doesn't mean
93 millions of miles of atmosphere would be. Such an atmosphere might
completely block the Sun's radiant light and heat from ever reaching
the Earth.

Double-A

Date: 15 Sep 2006 12:43:19
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <1158309866.830834.288860@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com >,
Double-A <double-aa@hush.ai > wrote:

>Sound would diminish with the inverse of the square of the distance
>just like light.

It isn't quite that simple. An example: nearby thunder not only sounds
louder but also more high-pitched than distant thunder.

>Even loud sounds here on Earth are difficult to hear
>only a few miles away. The Sun would have to be awfully loud to be
>heard from 93 million miles away.
>
>Someone said that the Earth would be overheated almost immediately
>because of heat convection if there were a continuous atmosphere
>between the Earth and the Sun. But as someone else pointed out, it
>would take years for sound to get here form the Sun, and so it would
>also take years for heat to reach here by convection from the Sun.

No problem - the Sun has been around much longer than that.... :-)

>Another consideration is what effect that continuous atmosphere would
>have on the Sun's radiant energy. Light passes through a small amount
>of water, but miles under the ocean everything is black. Just because
>our 100 miles or so of atmosphere is transparent to light doesn't mean
>93 millions of miles of atmosphere would be. Such an atmosphere might
>completely block the Sun's radiant light and heat from ever reaching
>the Earth.
>
>Double-A

One "air mass" (which corresponds to some 8 km of air at ground level
density) of very clear air absorbs about 0.1 magnitudes.

At sunrise or sunset, the sunlight shies through some 40 air masses,
and thus the Sun's brightness is attenuated by some 4 magnitudes - if
the air is very clear.

150 million km (the distance to the Sun) of air would be some 20
million air masses, each absorbing 0.1 magnitudes. The total absorption
would thus be 0.1 * 20 million = 2 million magnitudes!!!!! Under such
circumstances it would indeed be pitch black even at the strongest
possible daylight - a normal night on one of the Earth's darkest places
would be comparatively dazzling in brightness!

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 15 Sep 2006 17:46:33
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Paul Schlyter wrote:
> In article <1158281318.390493.269480@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Radium <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>
> > Paul Schlyter wrote:
> >> In article <1158177033.594706.232160@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
> >> Radium <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Paul Schlyter wrote:
> >>>> In article <4507A7AA.B1CDD92B@ai5.net>, Wally <woodfield@ai5.net> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Radium wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Hi:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> If all layers of earths atmosphere had the same thickness of air and
> >>>>>> the atmosphere somehow grew large enough in diameter to include the
> >>>>>> sun, would we hear the sounds produced by the sun? If so, what would
> >>>>>> they sound like?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Thanks,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Radium
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Your question deserves a question - what are you looking for?
> >>>>> The sound of God? Some sound that has never been heard on Earth
> >>>>> before? Some sound humongous? The anger of the Gods?
> >>>>
> >>>> We already have such a natural sound - it's called "thunder"......
> >>>> The weekday Thursday is the "day of Thor", the "god of thunder"....
> >>>>
> >>>>> What if the answer was: 'the same sound you hear on Earth listening
> >>>>> to the winds etc, which happens to be moving precisely because of
> >>>>> Solar activity distributed over the Earth's surface" ??? You tell
> >>>>> me!
> >>>>
> >>>> Perhaps he was just curious and wanted to know how we might
> >>>> perceive it? You seem a little provoked by the question itself....
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyway....
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> It would most likely be inaudible infra-sound, i.e. sound with
> >>>> frequencies well below 20 Hz. What does distant thunder sound like?
> >>>> Quite low-pitched, like a rumble - right?
> >>>
> >>> Wouldn't the extreme heat also produce high-pitched sounds above our
> >>> hearing range? AFAIK, by the time the sound reaches earth, the
> >>> frequency and amplitude would probably decrease due to dissapation of
> >>> energy.
> >>
> >
> >> At the Sun, the sound could very well be high-pitched. But
> >> high-pitched sound fade away faster in the air than low-pitched sound.
> >> That's why a nearby thunderstorm sounds more high-pitched than a
> >> distant thunderstorm. And that's also why I believe the only
> >> sound which would survive propagation through 150 million kilometers
> >> of air would be ultra-low-pitched sounds we cannot hear: infra-sound.
> >
> > Elephants may hear this and go into psychogenic shock! They can hear
> > infrasonic tones way below 10 hz. The infrasound emitted by the sun
> > would seriously disturb elephants' communications.
>

> People can experience strong infrasound too. The crew on submarines
> sometimes get sick due to infrasound with a frequency of a few Hz
> inside the submarine, generated by its engines.

True. Infrasound can liquefy your bowels and make you want to go to the
loo.

>
> >>> However, the sounds generated by the sun would probably be louder
> >>> [at least at the source] than lightning from the same distance because
> >>> the sun has so much more power than lightning.
> >
> >> :-) ....I fully agree with you that if the Sun was only some 10
> >> kilometers away, it would most likely produce an extremely loud
> >> noise.... :-))))))
> >
> > The sound we probably be louder than 140 [pain threshold].
>

> When I was a kid, I was taught that the pain threshold was at 110 dB.
> Now it's at 140 dB -- did we get that more insensitive to sound?

Actually the pain may start at 110 dB as an uncomforable "tickling" or
"underwater" feeling. In some it maybe painful, though. At 140 dB, it
is definitely painful. As sounds approach 140 dB, the listener will
begin to perceive the sound as distorted and at 140 or above, no sound
is noticed but only pain is felt. Amazing that sounds at or more than
140 dB are not perceived by the brain as "sound".

>
> > But the heat would probably kill us before we perceive anything.
> >
> >> However, your "same distance" option is not relevant here: a distant
> >> thunderstorm which still is audible is only some 10 km away, while
> >> the Sun is 15 million times more distant than that!
> >
> > I was comparing the loudness of sound generating by the sun vs. a
> > lightning strike, if the sun and lightning were the same distance to
> > us.
> >
> > If the sun were 10 km away it would probably be much louder [more
> > decibels] than a lightning strike that was 10 km away.
>

> We're in full agreement about that! And the reason is simple:
> the Sun is so much larger than a thunderstorm.... right? As a
> matter of fact, only a very small part of the Sun could be within
> 10 km from us....

Yes.

>
> > At some *extremely-small* level, though the sound emitted by the sun
> > could probably be 20 hz or above when they would reach earth. It just
> > that they would be WAY too soft for even the most-sophisticated
> > equipment [in today's world] to amplify those signals above 0 decibels.
>
> That would apply to any frequency: no matter how much it is
> attenuated, it will still be above mathematical zero. However, when
> the level has been attenuated below the molecular noise at the same
> freuqnecy, it makes no practical difference if the level is slightly
> above zero or not.....

With a sensitive enough receiver and detector, it is theoretically
possible to amplify sounds from below molecular noise to a level loud
enough for humans to perceive.

>
> > 0 decibels = threshold of hearing
>
> I don't think the threshold of hearing is 0 decibels anymore.
> Consider all those people going to rock concerts many times during
> their youth, permanently damaging their hearing before they get
> 20.....

Possible.

> Since the pain threshold has increased 30 dB in one generation
> (from 110 to 140 dB), isn't it reaonable to also assume that the
> threshold of hearing went up by 30 dB as well? That would put
> today's threshold of hearing around 30 dB .....

The thershold of pain usually remains the same regardless of the
thershold of hearing. Pain is caused by the extreme pressures causing
tears in the cochlea.

>
> > So we have to rely on increasing the pitch of the infrasound that the
> > solar radiotelescopes give us.
>
> ...or perhaps the solar radiotelescopes don't have enough resolution
> in time to be able to detect variations in the radial velocity at
> audible frequencies? Then it's an instrument problem really.

Very possible.

> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
> e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
> WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 16 Sep 2006 08:13:40
From: Paul Schlyter
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

In article <1158367593.200374.314550@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com >,
Radium <glucegen1@excite.com > wrote:

>> That would apply to any frequency: no matter how much it is
>> attenuated, it will still be above mathematical zero. However, when
>> the level has been attenuated below the molecular noise at the same
>> freuqnecy, it makes no practical difference if the level is slightly
>> above zero or not.....
>
> With a sensitive enough receiver and detector, it is theoretically
> possible to amplify sounds from below molecular noise to a level loud
> enough for humans to perceive.

You can amplify as much as you want, that's not the problem. The
problem is that you then also amplify the noise - and how will you
distinguish the sound you want to hear from the much stronger
unwanted noise?

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 18 Sep 2006 12:32:17
From: Radium
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

Paul Schlyter wrote:
> In article <1158367593.200374.314550@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
> Radium <glucegen1@excite.com> wrote:
>
> >> That would apply to any frequency: no matter how much it is
> >> attenuated, it will still be above mathematical zero. However, when
> >> the level has been attenuated below the molecular noise at the same
> >> freuqnecy, it makes no practical difference if the level is slightly
> >> above zero or not.....
> >
> > With a sensitive enough receiver and detector, it is theoretically
> > possible to amplify sounds from below molecular noise to a level loud
> > enough for humans to perceive.
>

> You can amplify as much as you want, that's not the problem. The
> problem is that you then also amplify the noise - and how will you
> distinguish the sound you want to hear from the much stronger
> unwanted noise?

There are digital devices that recognize noise and can remove it.
However, current equipement is unable to go down such small dB. AFAIK,
even when the noise is removed, there are "bubbly" artifacts caused by
the software as it attempts to remove the noise. These artifacts sound
like donald duck.

> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
> e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
> WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/

Date: 19 Sep 2006 19:01:38
From: Edward Green
Subject: Re: What does the sun sound like?

reconair wrote:

> http://soi.stanford.edu/results/sounds.html

Since the... arranger? ... sped up the signal "a factor 42,000", I
think we must classify that as very low frequency data presented as
sound, rather than sound.