Solar Vibration Modes
The movie above (click to run) shows only a single vibration mode
of the Sun. In reality
many such modes are present. Below is a short clip showing some
actual motions of the Sun's surface. Notice how much "noisier" the
actual Sun looks compared to the simpler movie above.
Well, that's exactly what it is - NOISE!! After all, what we call noise
is just lots and lots of different sounds, often coming from different
directions and sources, which is exactly what is taking place right
under the Sun's surface. Scientists use computers
to sort out and separate all of the millions of
vibrations. When they are done,
they obtain a spectrum of the sound waves which looks something like this:
This is a "spectrum" of the sound waves present on the Sun. It is like the spectrum of light in a rainbow,
which is a mixture
of different colors.
The purple "ribs" in the picture show sound waves with different
periods. The period of a wave on the surface is the time it
takes the surface to move up and down. For the Sun, this amount of
time is about 5 minutes, which is quite long compared to the period of
sound waves we can hear. In fact, to hear the solar sound waves, we
have to speed them up by at least 10,000 times! A scientist at
Stanford University has done this for us. Click below to listen to
the Sun!
Question:
The different modes of the Sun are like different notes. Is the sound
the Sun makes more like when a band or orchestra is playing together
or when the musicians are warming up?
Click here to go back.
