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Author Topic: The sounds of Saturn
venus_man
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posted 26 July 2005 10:26 AM      Profile for venus_man        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It kind of sounds like a soundtrack from the Star Trek or some sort of spooky alien movie. This however is real:
quote:
The Cassini spacecraft began detecting these radio emissions in April 2002, when Cassini was 374 million kilometers (234 million miles) from the planet, using the Cassini radio and plasma wave science instrument. The radio and plasma wave instrument has now provided the first high resolution observations of these emissions, showing an amazing array of variations in frequency and time. The complex radio spectrum with rising and falling tones, is very similar to Earth's auroral radio emissions. These structures indicate that there are numerous small radio sources moving along magnetic field lines threading the auroral region.

Time on this recording has been compressed, so that 73 seconds corresponds to 27 minutes. Since the frequencies of these emissions are well above the audio frequency range, we have shifted them downward by a factor of 44.


This is an audio file of radio emissions from Saturn


From: outer space | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Scott Piatkowski
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posted 26 July 2005 11:25 AM      Profile for Scott Piatkowski   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hello planet with the rings
We've finally learned to hear you sing...

From: Kitchener-Waterloo | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 26 July 2005 11:41 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Far out. That really is lovely.

Can someone explain to me:

quote:
These structures indicate that there are numerous small radio sources moving along magnetic field lines threading the auroral region.

What is meant by radio sources? What would a radio source be?


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
venus_man
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posted 26 July 2005 12:16 PM      Profile for venus_man        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There is more on this HEREincluding Java animation of the process.
From: outer space | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 26 July 2005 01:40 PM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Just wanted to add some of my own thinking to this topic. Hopefully, it will help explain previous question?

A thank you to Venus_Man for bringing this topic up.


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Gir Draxon
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posted 26 July 2005 02:09 PM      Profile for Gir Draxon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by skdadl:

What is meant by radio sources? What would a radio source be?


I presume anything that emits EMR at "radio" frequencies...


From: Arkham Asylum | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 26 July 2005 02:14 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But Gir: what would do that? That is the question.

Now I shall go back to read fo.


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skdadl
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posted 26 July 2005 02:17 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
forum observer: this, for instance:

quote:
# In addition to bouncing radio waves, the RADAR instrument will listen for radio waves that Saturn or its moons may be producing.[8]

How does a planet or its moons produce radio waves? That's my question.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 27 July 2005 02:27 AM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 

Auroral radio emissions are associated with the northern lights or aurora. Studies, primarily using auroral imagers and low-frequency radio receivers constructed at The University of Iowa, have shown the aurora is caused by energetic electrons striking the atmosphere and that these same electrons generate intense radio emissions over a frequency range about 100 to 500 kHz. University of Iowa instrumentation also revealed that similar radio emissions occur in association with aurora at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.


Good question that forced me to look to understand better Thanks. Did that help?

What is the magnetosphere?

How would each planet reveal it's nature with the sun?


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
aRoused
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posted 27 July 2005 10:30 AM      Profile for aRoused     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
More broadly, skdadl, anything that causes an electron to change energy levels will cause it to emit that energy as a photon/electromagnetic wave. If it has energy in a certain band, it'll have a wavelength in the radio region of the EM spectrum (if it had higher energy, it would be emitted as infrared, visible light, UV, X-rays, etc, again depending on the energy).

So electrons hitting Saturn's magnetic field could be one source, but events within Saturn could also potentially produce radio emissions. Reading the article, however, I see that the sounds you're hearing are in fact coming from the auroral radio emissions that FO described above.

Jupiter and the Sun produces radio emissions that can be picked up by a backyard telescope. Presumably one could do with with Saturn as well.

The science and technology museum in Ottawa used to have a set of earphones where you could listen to signals picked up by a Canadian radio telescope. Scared the pants off me, they did, and not just because you were hearing them in a darkened room.


From: The King's Royal Burgh of Eoforwich | Registered: Dec 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 27 July 2005 10:34 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So there are electrons just bopping around out there? Or "events" give off electrons?

(I know I'm sounding like a little kid: "But Mommy, where do the electrons come from?" -- but my science education dates from way back in the Dark Ages.)


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 27 July 2005 11:36 AM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
some further perspective and speculation.

This literature source is a ongoing process and developmental one I enjoy.

[ 27 July 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
aRoused
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posted 28 July 2005 06:56 AM      Profile for aRoused     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Since all atoms contain electrons in a cloud around the nucleus, there's plenty about, even in the 'vacuum' of space. And also there'll potentially be free electrons zipping about as well, since it's possible to knock electrons loose from atoms by hitting them with a photon of sufficient energy.

The basic questions are the best ones, be they in archaeology or physics or, heck, Star Wars trivia--they force you to remember stuff you usually take for granted!


From: The King's Royal Burgh of Eoforwich | Registered: Dec 2001  |  IP: Logged
rsfarrell
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posted 28 July 2005 05:25 PM      Profile for rsfarrell        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The energized particles come from here.

[ 29 July 2005: Message edited by: rsfarrell ]


From: Portland, Oregon | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 28 July 2005 05:38 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Mama!

Y'know, it's funny: I can follow these threads when you give me the sounds, but the sights really make me feel dizzy. I've felt that about other space threads: the pictures scare me. Often I quit looking when I see that the pics are too good. Sorry: brief outbreak of private neurosis.

I like the sounds, though. And I like the idea of them.

I once heard a Zen physicist (well, actually, I think he did Tao?) tell a story about a great physicist who had speculated that there was only one electron in the entire universe, moving very fast.

I like that thought too.


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Raos
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posted 28 July 2005 07:36 PM      Profile for Raos     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Electrons are certainly a strange particle, that's for sure. They can literally teleport, and there's a chance, albeit very VERY small, that an electron that belongs to an atom in YOUR computer spent some time on saturn while you listened to that sound file.
From: Sweet home Alaberta | Registered: May 2004  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 29 July 2005 12:07 AM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Often I quit looking when I see that the pics are too good. Sorry: brief outbreak of private neurosis.

You have to understand what the sun signifies as it ejects solar flares. Sometimes using Soho the predictive feature can be of value when disruption of communications becomes fuzzy. This gives us advance warnings.

The Electron

I call it, a Shakespearean Quandry?

Look under E=mc2....third panel, scrolling down

You see, us humans try and mimic the sun "in particle creation" and the resulting collisions? Well At LHC, the other aspect of this determination, is vital, in recognition of the Auger experiments.

This happens all around us now. Really quite natural. So are microstate blackholes

[ 29 July 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Suzette
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posted 29 July 2005 12:31 AM      Profile for Suzette     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks for posting that, venus_man; it absolutely made my day.
From: Pig City | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 29 July 2005 12:40 AM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
rsfarrel- reduce your image to width=448 height=441 after Img src in colons
From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Willowdale Wizard
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posted 29 July 2005 05:14 AM      Profile for Willowdale Wizard   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Hello planet with the rings
We've finally learned to hear you sing...

I turned my radio telescope to the cold and dark
When my eyes were stabbed
By the flash of the solar light
That split the night
And touched the sounds ... of Saturn


From: england (hometown of toronto) | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged
forum observer
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posted 29 July 2005 12:23 PM      Profile for forum observer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
How natural world has been painted.

I am trying to give a "sound" perspective

[ 29 July 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]


From: It is appropriate that plectics refers to entanglement or the lack thereof, | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged

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