The Sound of the Sun Robert Alexander
W
hile images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory now render our sun in striking detail, there is a world of information that eludes our eyes, remaining entirely invisible. Through false color imaging we can expand our sensorium and perceive wavelengths far beyond visible light: radio waves mixed with x-rays in a swirling sea of color. Still, these images only tell us part of a much larger story. In search of a deeper understanding of complex phenomena, several scientists have turned a blind eye to traditional techniques and revisited their data without any intention of seeing something new. In short, they’ve stopped looking for answers and started listening. Enter the science of sonification. Enter the human ear. To a handful of researchers, the squiggly lines generated by satellites look less like scientific graphs and more like audio files. The massive archive of information gathered across countless NASA missions feels less like a data archive and more like an old record collection waiting to be explored. What happens when you pull PHOTOs: this page: courtesy of NASA/SDO 172 ORIGINMAGAZINE.COM
43 years of solar wind data out of the sleeve and drop it on the turntable? Solar flares and coronal mass ejections become clicks and pops. The rotation of the sun becomes an underlying hum, and the solar magnetic field rings with spherical harmonics. Slow the turntable down, and you’re listening to everything unfold at a fraction of the original speed. As data becomes sound, the analyst becomes DJ. With the ability to filter and loop in real-time, the interaction becomes fluid, the data malleable. One might ask: why listen? Consider the power of our auditory sense; we can easily follow a conversational