NASA, ESA, CSA. Data reduction and analysis ; PDRs4All ERS Team. Graph processing S. Fuenmayor
- The European Space Agency released five minutes of haunting audio from Earth's magnetic field.
- Scientists converted magnetic signals from ESA satellites into sound by taking them in their hands.
- Solbjerg Square in Copenhagen is playing deep, crackling sounds that resemble deep breathing.
The European Space Agency this week released five minutes of haunting, crackling audio — revealing what Earth's magnetic field sounds like.
Earth's internal magnetism, called the magnetosphere, generates a comet-shaped field around the surface of the planet that provides protection from harmful solar and cosmic particle radiation, as well as erosion of the atmosphere by the solar wind, according to NASA.
Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark took magnetic signals, measured by ESA's Swarm satellite mission dedicated to surveying the magnetic field, and converted them to sound.
The resulting five-minute audio includes eerie creaks and crackling sounds, as well as deep breathing-like sounds that listeners on social media described as "Terrifying" and "Frightening spine-tingling sensations."
On October 24, the recording was discovered by Solbjerg Square in Copenhagen. Since then, the broadcast has been repeated three times per day. It is planned to play it every day at 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. from October 24 through October 30.
"We gained access to a very interesting sound system consisting of over 30 loudspeakers dug into the ground at the Solbjerg Square in Copenhagen," musician and project supporter Klaus Nielsen, from the Technical University of Denmark, Tell the European Space AgencyInformation about the live installation.
"The rumbling of Earth's magnetic field is accompanied by a representation of a geomagnetic storm that resulted from a solar flare on 3 November 2011, and indeed it sounds pretty scary," Nielsen added.
Representatives of the European Space Agency and of the Technical University of Denmark did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
