Scientists are recording the sound of the whole planet

In a few weeks, sensors in Indiana will go online that will record, in the words of Bryan Pijanowski, every sound the Earth makes. The array of microphones, geophones, and barometric gauges will run for a year, taping everything from the songs of birds arriving in the spring to the vibrations of the continent as ocean waves pound the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. They will measure earthquakes on the other side of the world and the stomping of cattle nearby, the ultrasonic whistles of bats and the barometric drop of cold fronts. “I joke to my physicist friends that if I had a microphone small enough, I could record the Higgs boson,” Pijanowski says.

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CrazyNeutrino said:

Scientists are recording the sound of the whole planet

In a few weeks, sensors in Indiana will go online that will record, in the words of Bryan Pijanowski, every sound the Earth makes. The array of microphones, geophones, and barometric gauges will run for a year, taping everything from the songs of birds arriving in the spring to the vibrations of the continent as ocean waves pound the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. They will measure earthquakes on the other side of the world and the stomping of cattle nearby, the ultrasonic whistles of bats and the barometric drop of cold fronts. “I joke to my physicist friends that if I had a microphone small enough, I could record the Higgs boson,” Pijanowski says.

more…

Do we have to all be really quiet or something?

Skeptic Pete said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

Scientists are recording the sound of the whole planet

In a few weeks, sensors in Indiana will go online that will record, in the words of Bryan Pijanowski, every sound the Earth makes. The array of microphones, geophones, and barometric gauges will run for a year, taping everything from the songs of birds arriving in the spring to the vibrations of the continent as ocean waves pound the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. They will measure earthquakes on the other side of the world and the stomping of cattle nearby, the ultrasonic whistles of bats and the barometric drop of cold fronts. “I joke to my physicist friends that if I had a microphone small enough, I could record the Higgs boson,” Pijanowski says.

more…

Do we have to all be really quiet or something?

Shhh

I wonder if they will record those sonic booms

I see this as important for several reasons, one which is to provide a baseline value from which we can watch the increase in noise pollution around the world. There is even the possibility of using it to discover new species of, for example, frogs, or discovering a new type of lightning sound. Good software and lots of computer storage is needed, my computer runs out of storage space on recording even a day’s worth of uncompressed audio from one microphone. I’m not sure that using mobile phones is going to give scientifically objective results. Top marks for trying and very worthwhile.