Solar Music

The sun has been the inspiration for hundreds of songs, but now scientists have discovered that the star at the center of our solar system produces its own music.
Astronomers at the University of Sheffield have managed to record for the first time the eerie musical harmonies produced by the magnetic field in the outer atmosphere of the sun.
They found that huge magnetic loops that have been observed coiling away from the outer layer of the sun's atmosphere, known as coronal loops, vibrate like strings on a musical instrument.
Using satellite images of these loops, which can be over 60,000 miles long, the scientists were able to recreate the sound by turning the visible vibrations into noises and speeding up the frequency so it is audible to the human ear.
Professor Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen, head of the solar physics research group at Sheffield University, said: "It was strangely beautiful and exciting to hear these noises for the first time from such a large and powerful source... It is a sort of music as it has harmonics." "It is providing us with a new way of learning about the sun and giving us a new insight into the physics that goes on at in the sun's outer layers where temperatures reach millions of degrees," he added. The coronal loops are thought to be involved in the production of solar flares that fling highly charged particles out into space, creating a phenomenon known as space weather.