Here GOES Radiotelescope Sound

Space Weather Sonification

The sound heard onsite at Here GOES Radiotelescope, and in the streaming audio from Wave Farm’s website (also above), is a ‘sonification’ created from space weather data collected in real time by Here GOES Radiotelescope. It is an audio imagining of the soundscape of solar wind hitting and flowing around Earth, as if it were a field recording of the interaction of energies. The sound changes throughout the day as the spacecraft passes between the sunward and leeward sides of the Earth’s protective magnetosphere.

When seated within Here GOES Radiotelescope, visitors see the live view of Earth through the satellite's eyes and hear the space environment that the satellite is sensing in real time.

The sonification is made from 4 different space-weather-detecting instruments aboard GOES-16, the data from each contributing voices to the soundscape:

Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensors [EXIS]: Average X-ray irradiance (XRS-A bandpass)

High-pitched chorus in repetitive pattern
Magnetometer [MAG]: Total ambient Earth geomagnetic field (in Attitude Control Reference Frame (ACRF))

Medium-pitched fast-warbling tone
Space Environment In-Situ Suite [SEISS]: Energetic Heavy Ions Sensor (EHIS differential hydrogen ion flux)

Very low-pitched reverberant drone
Space Environment In-Situ Suite [SEISS]: Magnetospheric Particle Sensor – High Energy Range (MPS-HI differential electron flux on electron telescope 3)

Medium-pitched ambient wavering chorus
Space Environment In-Situ Suite [SEISS]: Magnetospheric Particle Sensor – High Energy Range (MPS-HI differential proton flux on proton telescope 3)

Solid slightly wavering electronic tone

A schematic illustration of the confined geomagnetic field and the detached bow shock wave in the noon-midnight magnetic meridian plane. This figure also delineates various regions of the Earth's plasma environment. [D. M. Willis, The Microstructure of the Magnetopause, Geophysical Journal International, Volume 41, Issue 3, June 1975, Pages 355–389]

Here GOES Radiotelescope receives the ‘GOES ReBroadcast’ (GRB) stream of data, which contains the full suite of the data from all the instruments aboard the satellite. Some of these instruments, marked here in magenta, monitor space weather conditions caused by electromagnetic radiation and charged particles being released from solar storms, which can cause disturbances to electrical and radio technology systems on Earth. [Image adapted from Aerospace America]