Stereo: Sounds of the Sun

As part of the NASA STEREO Convention, Dr Janet Luhmann, Research Geophysicist at the Space Science Laboratory at UC Berkeley, IMPACT Principal Investigator and leader of the development of the STEREO project, will explore the connections between solar science and sound and compare visual and audible representations of data from STEREO. (STEREO is the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory, an innovative mission to study how large solar storms influence our life on earth.)

Luhmann will explain how she and her team collect simultaneous, 'local' space magnetic field and particle data and turn these readings into sounds. These sounds give a feeling for what is 'arriving' from the Sun at the STEREO spacecraft, while the images are showing what is happening at a distance, near the Sun. While other groups work on various types of STEREO data sounds, Luhmann and her group's specialty is the 'in-situ' data conversions.

More about the convention:

International scientists will hold a conference at the Science Gallery to discuss the new exciting results from the NASA STEREO mission. The Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) is an innovative mission to study how large solar storms influence our life on earth. This mission consists of two nearly identical telescopes in space. One orbits ahead of the Earth, the other trailing behind it. With these multiple viewpoints, STEREO provides the first-ever stereoscopic measurements to study the Sun and the discover the nature of solar storms. These storms constitute the key component of space weather. Our intrinsic, ever-growing, reliance on electrical power supplies and telecommunication satellites electricity make this a fundamental area of scientific research in today’s society.