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Eerie Sounds from Saturn

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the woooooooooo-woooooooooooo dept.

Mick Ohrberg writes "Scientists at NASA have now heard proof (called 'Saturn kilometric radiation') that Saturn has a phenomenon similar to the earths' Northern Lights (aurora borealis). Talking about the eerie sounding noise, Dr. Bill Kurth with the University of Iowa, says "We believe that the changing frequencies are related to tiny radio sources moving up and down along Saturn's magnetic field lines." It couldn't sound any spookier if they added a Theremin."

8 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Just Because... by daviq · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just because the Saturnites are watching the twilight zone gives our scientists no reason to talk about electroical-magnetical-thingicals...

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    1. Re:Just Because... by chriswaclawik · · Score: 5, Funny
      Just because the Saturnites...

      We prefer the term Saturnian, you insensitive clod!

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      A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
  2. Wahhh by JeiFuRi · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought there was no sound in space?

    1. Re:Wahhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      These are radio emissions, electromagnitec waves that propagate undisturbed in vacuum and as such were detected by Cassini. Sound as you point out needs a medium such as air, as it required waves of a compressed medium, and our ears evolved to detect a portion of that frequency, typically 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The audio that you hear is just an artifact, it is just the "baseband" interpretation of that emission, and is useful to appreciate the richness of the emissions in the frequency spectrum and variation in time (which we appreciate as "tone" and "melody"). It was "transposed" by a factor of about 40, but this is arbitrary and can affect the quality of the "rendition".

  3. Forbidden planet by Various+Assortments · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sounds like some of the effects from the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet!

    http://imdb.com/title/tt0049223/

  4. INSPIRE by geigertube · · Score: 5, Informative

    If anyone's interested in listening to the Earth natural radio broadcasts, NASA has a nice page set up (with kits for making your own VLF receiver)here. Other planets here.

  5. News? by mendaliv · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is news? Hippies have been hearing this sound since the 60s!

  6. Theremins are not obsolete! by toeofdestiny · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can still buy new ones from Moog.