Space is often thought to be silent, but there are sounds in space and for over 70 years a radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory has been helping us to be able to hear them.
Now an astrophysics professor and contemporary music producers have teamed up to create a special remix of some of the observatory’s historic archive recordings called Hello Moon.
warning has flashy lights
I have previously listened to plasma wave whistles as spacecraft have entered the magnetospheres of other planets. It’s not sound, but has some of the same frequencies.
CrazyNeutrino said:
What does space sound like?Space is often thought to be silent, but there are sounds in space and for over 70 years a radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory has been helping us to be able to hear them.
Misleading and kind of stupid. A radio telescope does not detect sound.
dv said:
CrazyNeutrino said:
What does space sound like?Space is often thought to be silent, but there are sounds in space and for over 70 years a radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory has been helping us to be able to hear them.
Misleading and kind of stupid. A radio telescope does not detect sound.
Jodie foster – “contact”
wookiemeister said:
dv said:
CrazyNeutrino said:
What does space sound like?Space is often thought to be silent, but there are sounds in space and for over 70 years a radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory has been helping us to be able to hear them.
Misleading and kind of stupid. A radio telescope does not detect sound.
oh yeahJodie foster – “contact”
I thought that shimmery alien that might have been a coopted memory a great idea and a change from the usual portrayals of aliens.
wookiemeister said:
dv said:
CrazyNeutrino said:
What does space sound like?Space is often thought to be silent, but there are sounds in space and for over 70 years a radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory has been helping us to be able to hear them.
Misleading and kind of stupid. A radio telescope does not detect sound.
oh yeahJodie foster – “contact”
Are you making a statement or asking a question about that work of fiction?
Another One More Note (August 24, 2000): I get email from people asking if her walkie-talkie would interfere with the signal being received (when she first hears the Signal, she grabs her radio and starts yelling coordinates to her assistants). Bad Reader Ted Brattstrom asked Dave Finley, an astronomer at VLA, about this. Dave replied that since there are multiple dishes, interference at one is no big deal. They also have electronic techs who make sure the walkie-talkies are ```clean’‘, and do not interfere with the observations. Dave also told me that they allow cars as well; at some observatories, the spark plugs from cars messes up the signal as well. Only diesel cars are allowed; they have no spark plugs. Again, at VLA that’s not such a big problem.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/contact.html
ChrispenEvan said:
Another One More Note (August 24, 2000): I get email from people asking if her walkie-talkie would interfere with the signal being received (when she first hears the Signal, she grabs her radio and starts yelling coordinates to her assistants). Bad Reader Ted Brattstrom asked Dave Finley, an astronomer at VLA, about this. Dave replied that since there are multiple dishes, interference at one is no big deal. They also have electronic techs who make sure the walkie-talkies are ```clean’‘, and do not interfere with the observations. Dave also told me that they allow cars as well; at some observatories, the spark plugs from cars messes up the signal as well. Only diesel cars are allowed; they have no spark plugs. Again, at VLA that’s not such a big problem.http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/contact.html
Radio telescopes work in much the same way as ``regular’‘ telescopes: they collect light (in this case, light in the radio frequency) and combine it into a signal. In most cases, the signal is so weak it takes a computer and sophisticated software to actually pull the signal out from all the noise of background objects (and foreground objects too; cars, appliances, everything that runs or uses on electricity can interfere with radio telescopes). So radio astronomers don’t have a habit of using headphones to listen to the signals. Also, astronomers look at millions of ``channels’‘ simultaneously to try to figure out just which frequency an alien race might use to communicate with us. Headphones can only check one at a time. Not very efficient!
image of Ellie listening with headphones However, as I recall, in the book, Ellie simply like listening to the ``white noise’‘ of the background static. As it turns out, it pays off, because The Message is so strong that it overwhelms the background. Matter of fact, in the movie they mention the power is about 100 Janskys. A Jansky is a unit of radio energy, and most sources in the sky can be measured in millijanskys (a thousandth of a Jansky). So 100 Janskys is a pretty big signal!
One more note on this one: when we see Ellie listening on her headphones, in the background is the Very Large Array (VLA), a collection of 27 large radio telescopes near Socorro, New Mexico. You can see a few of them in the image above. This is a real site, and they simply filmed the scene there. However, when the scene first appeared, the guy in the seat in front of me at the theater leaned over to a friend and said ``What a great effect!’‘. He thought it was a computer image! How cool is it that we astronomers have instruments so impressive that people think they aren’t real? ;-)
AwesomeO said:
wookiemeister said:
dv said:Misleading and kind of stupid. A radio telescope does not detect sound.
oh yeahJodie foster – “contact”
I thought that shimmery alien that might have been a coopted memory a great idea and a change from the usual portrayals of aliens.
Cut Matthew McCantbefuckedrememberinghowtospellhisnameahey out and it is a decent picture.
dv said:
AwesomeO said:
wookiemeister said:oh yeah
Jodie foster – “contact”
I thought that shimmery alien that might have been a coopted memory a great idea and a change from the usual portrayals of aliens.
Cut Matthew McCantbefuckedrememberinghowtospellhisnameahey out and it is a decent picture.
I hope to watch it again off my chops.
I wonder what the aliens would have done if they had sent George bush or tony Abbott ?
AwesomeO said:
dv said:
AwesomeO said:I thought that shimmery alien that might have been a coopted memory a great idea and a change from the usual portrayals of aliens.
Cut Matthew McCantbefuckedrememberinghowtospellhisnameahey out and it is a decent picture.
I hope to watch it again off my chops.
Haven’t heard that expression for a while.
interstellar wasn’t a bad watch
spoiler , the aliens live in gargantuan , massing an evil army to conquer earth
monkey skipper said:
AwesomeO said:
dv said:Cut Matthew McCantbefuckedrememberinghowtospellhisnameahey out and it is a decent picture.
I hope to watch it again off my chops.
Haven’t heard that expression for a while.
wookiemeister said:
I wonder what the aliens would have done if they had sent George bush or tony Abbott ?
wookiemeister said:
I wonder what the aliens would have done if they had sent George bush or tony Abbott ?
They would send them straight back.
Do you think Aliens would really send someone when humanity is still killing itself, killing other species and trashing the Earth?
CrazyNeutrino said:
wookiemeister said:
I wonder what the aliens would have done if they had sent George bush or tony Abbott ?
They would send them straight back.
Do you think Aliens would really send someone when humanity is still killing itself, killing other species and trashing the Earth?
Of course. Couple of options, they don’t know, they don’t care, it is to their advantage. I don’t go with BCs belief that arriving aliens must be by definition intergalactic hippies.
I could help the aliens take over the earth , point out a few problems that need to be incinerated
in return for my protection the locals would submit to my will and declare me their protector and willingly build my salt pyramids for a feed
wookiemeister said:
I could help the aliens take over the earth , point out a few problems that need to be incineratedin return for my protection the locals would submit to my will and declare me their protector and willingly build my salt pyramids for a feed
It would probably when they hear you speak and think…
“really? humans are that simple?…”
We’ll make great pets…
New “sounds of space” from the spacecraft Juno.
https://soundcloud.com/nasa/juno-listens-to-jupiters-auroras
“Thirteen hours of radio emissions from Jupiter’s intense auroras are presented here, both visually and in sound. The data was collected when the spacecraft made its first orbital pass of the gas giant on Aug 27, 2016, with all spacecraft instruments turned on. The frequency range of these signals is from 7 to 140 kilohertz. Radio astronomers call these “kilometric emissions” because their wavelengths are about a kilometer long.”
ChrispenEvan said:
Another One More Note (August 24, 2000): I get email from people asking if her walkie-talkie would interfere with the signal being received (when she first hears the Signal, she grabs her radio and starts yelling coordinates to her assistants). Bad Reader Ted Brattstrom asked Dave Finley, an astronomer at VLA, about this. Dave replied that since there are multiple dishes, interference at one is no big deal. They also have electronic techs who make sure the walkie-talkies are ```clean’‘, and do not interfere with the observations. Dave also told me that they allow cars as well; at some observatories, the spark plugs from cars messes up the signal as well. Only diesel cars are allowed; they have no spark plugs. Again, at VLA that’s not such a big problem.http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/contact.html
looking up toward and out through the ionosphere’d be quite noisy I would have thought, anyway.
transition said:
ChrispenEvan said:
Another One More Note (August 24, 2000): I get email from people asking if her walkie-talkie would interfere with the signal being received (when she first hears the Signal, she grabs her radio and starts yelling coordinates to her assistants). Bad Reader Ted Brattstrom asked Dave Finley, an astronomer at VLA, about this. Dave replied that since there are multiple dishes, interference at one is no big deal. They also have electronic techs who make sure the walkie-talkies are ```clean’‘, and do not interfere with the observations. Dave also told me that they allow cars as well; at some observatories, the spark plugs from cars messes up the signal as well. Only diesel cars are allowed; they have no spark plugs. Again, at VLA that’s not such a big problem.http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/contact.html
looking up toward and out through the ionosphere’d be quite noisy I would have thought, anyway.
depends on frequency. I mean we communicate with satellites all the time.
ChrispenEvan said:
transition said:
ChrispenEvan said:
Another One More Note (August 24, 2000): I get email from people asking if her walkie-talkie would interfere with the signal being received (when she first hears the Signal, she grabs her radio and starts yelling coordinates to her assistants). Bad Reader Ted Brattstrom asked Dave Finley, an astronomer at VLA, about this. Dave replied that since there are multiple dishes, interference at one is no big deal. They also have electronic techs who make sure the walkie-talkies are ```clean’‘, and do not interfere with the observations. Dave also told me that they allow cars as well; at some observatories, the spark plugs from cars messes up the signal as well. Only diesel cars are allowed; they have no spark plugs. Again, at VLA that’s not such a big problem.http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/contact.html
looking up toward and out through the ionosphere’d be quite noisy I would have thought, anyway.
depends on frequency. I mean we communicate with satellites all the time.
yeah yeah was thinking a local handheld radio operating at low frequencies wouldn’t be much of an issue, in the context of noise from and in the ionosphere.