If you put your ear up to a conch shell you hear the ocean. If you work at U of M and have access to NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer satellite, you might hear the sun.
Scientists can now listen to a set of solar
wind data that's usually represented visually, as numbers or graphs.
University of Michigan researchers have "sonified" the data. They've
created an acoustic, or musical, representation of it.
The researchers' primary goal was to try to hear information that
their eyes might have missed in solar wind speed and particle density
data gathered by NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer satellite. The
solar wind is a stream of charged particles emanating from the sun.
The process of sonification isn't new. It's how Geiger counter
radiation detectors emit clicks in the presence of high-energy
particles.
"What makes this project different is the level of artistic license
I was given," said composer and recent UM School of Music alumnus
Robert Alexander.