Many people claim to hear crackling noises during intense auroras, and although sound itself could not carry from 60 miles up it is possible that the lights powerful electrical field might. We are tls, a moving image agency and we believe content is only king when it catches. Northern lights make noise, too scientific american. Witnesses say the sounds are comparable to radio static, like a faint crackling, light. Mathematical model confirms the hypothesis of the origin. Whistling at the northern lights opinion the telegram. Heres why a scientist in finland is searching for the source of the faint and mysterious sounds sometimes heard during displays of the northern lights. It was sort of a crackling rustling type sound almost like a cross between static discharge and semi dried leaves being blown along the ground in the fall. How one scientist decoded the mysterious sounds of the. Laines solitary hunt for the elusive sound of the northern lights demanded great patience. The popping and crackling sounds associated with aurora borealis or the northern lights are born when the related geomagnetic storm activates the charges that have accumulated in the atmospheres inversion layer causing them to discharge, according to researchers at aalto university, finland. But telling stories counts for little if no one is watching or listening.
The whistling crackling noise which sometimes accompanies. But for at least the past century, some of those stories have also mentioned eerie noises. The popping and crackling sounds associated with aurora borealis or the northern lights are born when the related geomagnetic storm activates the. He uses a microphone array to triangulate the location of aurora sounds and a vhfloop antenna to record magnetic field changes caused by the aurora. Live sound, video mapping lighting from cleveland ohio. There have been few intense auroras over finland in the past 16 years, thanks in part to the solar minimum, a period of decreased activity in the suns natural 11year solar cycle. The recorded, unamplified sounds can be similar to crackles or muffled bangs, which last for only a short period of time. Scientists find explanation for sounds of northern lights. The same energetic particles that create the dazzling northern lights high up in earths atmosphere also produce strange clapping noises 230 feet from the ground.
Laine has studied the sounds made by the northern lights for more than 15 years, in fields and on frozen lakes near his home in southern finland. Researchers have recorded sound evidence to support the idea that noises long reputed to accompany the aurora borealis do exist. Though it did not happen all the time, on some of the most intense displays i did hear a sound. According to this study, when the northern lights occur, the spectrum of the temporal envelope of the crackling noise or in other words, the rapid changes in the sound amplitude contain. Another mystery of the northern lights is the sound that they are said to make. Northern lights make for quite a sight and some odd sounds research detailing clapping noises vindicates folk tales, reports by wilderness travelers. Some say they have heard the northern lights aurora borealis. A scientist in finland has proposed a new theory about the source of the mysterious sounds associated with the northern lights, or aurora borealis. The twoway there have been folktales for centuries about sounds supposedly coming from the. Arctic wilderness tales often wax poetic about dazzling displays of northern lights painting the skies. The sounds do not occur regularly when the northern lights are seen. It sounded like a crackling sound a little like the wind blowing against leaves. How one scientist decoded the mysterious sounds of the northern lights. On a clear january night in northern sweden, after hours of squinting and wondering if this or that small cloud might be the northern lights, a shimmering, aliengreen ribbon unfurled across the sky.
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