Good morning folks.

Is this for real?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fqE01YYWs

The sound in the video is supposed to be electromagnetic vibrations.Is this for real & if so,what's making the noise?

And do the other planets make a noise?

As far as it goes, yes.

What's incorrect is the implication that these are "sound waves" traveling through space. They are actually electromagnetic signals generated by Jupiter and amplified in its magnetosphere, then picked up at radio frequencies and converted back to audio in the "recording".

If you were present in orbit at Jupiter, and could withstand its lethal radiation long enough, this is not what you'd hear. Instead, you'd hear the rain of microscopic, high-speed particles trapped in Jupiter's environment rather quickly roasting you and impinging on your spacecraft.

You can listen to Jupiter on a shortwave radio. It and its satellite Io routinely produce "radio storms" at what are called decametric frequencies, at about 21MHz. With a proper antenna, any standard world-band shortwave radio can pick up these storms. There are also several Radio Jove observatories around the world and some operators put their data online, converted to audio for you to hear.

You can do this yourself for a couple hundred dollars (US). Here's the Radio Jove home page.

Click on the speaker icons below the charts on this page to hear some examples. Again, these have been down-converted in frequency (digitally transformed) to correspond to wavelengths an audio speaker can reproduce so you can hear them.

Similarly, the Milky Way galaxy transmits radio waves, as does our Sun.

God afternoon Chip.

Thanks for the reply & you answered my question.So the noise does come from the planet.

Is it a case that the bigger the planetry body,the bigger the noise? What about Phobos & Demos that orbit Mars,do they make less noise?

Nice to hear from you again Chip & I look forward to your reply later as I'm just off to work.

It's only partly a matter of size.

Jupiter's strange makeup and differential rotation give it a very strong magnetic field, which forms a magnetosphere around the planet.

Io orbits within this region. The particles ripped from Io's atmosphere (from volcanic emissions of gases) are accelerated by interaction with Jupiter's magnetosphere. Io's vulcanism is fueled primarily by tidal squeezing caused by nearby Jupiter's gravitational "squeezing" of the tiny moon.

As Io orbits Jupiter, there are times when the alignment between Io and Jupiter's magnetospheric "flux tube" is such at it aims in Earth's direction. The flux tube more or less continuously emits radio energy, so when it is aimed in Earth's direction it acts like a lighthouse beacon and we hear these radio storms later as they reach us.

If Jupiter were very much smaller, but with the same atmospheric composition and differential rotation, then the storms would be weaker. If Io weren't there at all, then the radio emissions would be more constant (like background noise). If Jupiter had no differential rotation, it would have no electromagnetic dynamo effect, and there'd be only low-level radio emissions (from storm lightning, radioactive decay products, etc.).

Tiny satellites without magnetic fields do not radiate much radio-frequency energy.

Good morning Chip.

Thankyou again for the most informative reply.Chip as you know my scientific knowledge is low but I'm always keen to learn.So that's the excuse & lead up to the dumb question out of the way.....Radio waves.Why are they called radio waves?There are no radios up there so why are they called radio waves.

Chip,if you ever need to discuss English law or the High renaissance artist Titian,then I'm the person the speak to.But science really is my weak subject.

Shady:

Good morning Chip.

... Radio waves.Why are they called radio waves?There are no radios up there so why are they called radio waves.

It's because the energy is transmitted toward Earth at radio-frequency wavelengths.

The spectrum of electromagnetic energy is represented in the following diagram from Wikipedia Commons:

 

Note that radio frequency wavelengths are at the low end of the scale. Note also that the wavelengths are on the same scale as buildings (which is why your radio works inside and among buildings -- they aren't as easily deflected as visible light waves.

It's also important to understand that the electromagnetic spectrum is a continuum. In astronomy, that's important to know because as radiation spreads outwarf from its source, its wavelength can be "stretched" due to the expansion of the universe, leading to what is called the cosmological redshift effect. It's a lot like the Doppler Effect, first described using sound (acoustic) waves.

The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength and the higher the energy.

There is no radio tower on Jupiter "broadcasting" to us. The interaction of Io with Jupiter's magnetosphere creates electromagnetic radiation that just happens to be at radio wavelengths ... so you can use a radio to receive them on Earth.

 

Mmmmmmmm! Can you hear my brain ticking? I'm thinking of a question to ask......

Shady:

Mmmmmmmm! Can you hear my brain ticking? I thinking of a question to ask......

Hear it, no. See it, yes. Our bodies temperature is 37°C and therefore acording to the diagram we give of lots of Infrared. Point an infrared camera at your body and it will appear red and yellow. As you're thinking the head will hopefully bright. You can't hide from an infrared camera!

OK, but that's not what the icons in the diagram mean. They mean that the wavelength (the distance between successive peaks or troughs in the radiation) is "about that size".

So, infrared frequences are waves that are about the size of a human. Gamma ray frequencies are about the size of an atomic particle. Etc.

My Radio Jove antenna is a half-wavelength dipole (straight wire) cut for a frequency of 20.1 MHz and is 23 feet 3 inches (7.09 meters). So, the full wavelength is twice that, or about the size of a small building. 

Just to be clear ...

Now, does the human brain radiate? Yep, at several different low-frequency wavelengths detectable at short distances via instruments like the electroencephalograph. Alpha waves (Berger waves) are between 8 and 12 Hz, which is below the range of human hearing. The lowest-frequency Delta waves are from 1 to 4 Hz and the highest Gamma waves are up to 70 Hz.

And all of those different wavelengths that we can't see or hear, can be converted by our different devices into things that we can see and hear. The infrared into visual information, via a camera. Radio frequencies into sounds, or visual, such as television. Brain waves into visual, and so on. They have converted different stars outputs into sounds, and the CMB into sounds, which doesn't mean much of anything, except that the mainstream media likes to try and confuse people by saying like, "We now have sounds from Jupiter." or "The big bang was in the key of G." or something silly like that. You can take anything that radiates energy and convert that signal into a sound or visual signal, if you have the right device.

Good afternoon Oliver.

My head would have lit up like a beacon light after my day at work yesterday.

Quote: As you're thinking the head will hopefully bright. You can't hide from an infrared camera!

Talking of cameras Oliver.I'm driving up to Gloucester tomorrow on the M5.Are those peskie speed cameras still in operation on & around the bridge at Avonmouth?

 

 

Along similar lines, I once read that if sound were able to travel through space, the Sun would be a deafening place.  Not just with radio waves, but noise audible to humans (yes, I realize it may not make any sense to refer to "audible" noise and "deafening" noise as one in the same... bear with me). Any truth to this?  If so, would we be able to hear the Sun from Earth?

Good questions!

The Sun is quite active at a wide range of wavelengths.

One thing I'm positive we'd hear is the crashing of matter raining down onto the Sun. When flares and prominences collapse, we can see "tidal waves" ripple across the Sun's surface. If sound waves could carry through space, we'd undoubtedly hear those.

There are also several different doppler-shifted features (prominences, for example) that could make themselves heard at audio wavelengths. And the whole Sun "rings like a bell" at very low frequencies as it pulsates. We might be able to even Feel that.