When the Sun belches out an eructation of subatomic particles, they can travel across the solar system and interact with the Earth's magnetic field. This can make our field ring like a bell, shaking the particles trapped within, and generating electromagnetic noise and signals across the radio spectrum. The CARISMA radio array can detect these emissions and learn about how the Sun's and Earth's fields interact. That's the science. But there's art here, too: the Lighthouse agency commissioned artists to create digital artwork based on science, and one group, Semiconductor, used the CARISMA data to do so. Based on the data, they translated the radio waves (which are like the light we see, but less energetic) and converted them to sound. This has been done many times before, but what's cool is that they then created an animation based on the converted sounds, an astonishing and odd and mesmerizing animation. ...
Mesmerizing visualization of a geomagnetic storm
Explore how the Sun belches out subatomic particles, creating electromagnetic noise detectable by CARISMA radio array.
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