41,000 years ago, the Earth’s magnetic field changed its polarity during the so-called Laschamp event. Recently, scientists have reproduced the event and turned it into sound.
Laschamp event in the Earth’s magnetic field
About 41,000 years ago, the Earth’s magnetic field briefly changed direction during an event known as Laschamp. This was preceded by its strong weakening to at least 5% of its current strength, allowing more cosmic rays to reach Earth’s atmosphere.
Scientists from the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Center for Geosciences used data from the European Space Agency’s Swarm mission, as well as other sources, to create a sounding visualization of the Laschamp event. They mapped the movement of the Earth’s magnetic field lines during the event and created a stereo sound version, which you can hear in the video.
Recording of Earth’s magnetic signals
The soundscape was created using recordings of natural sounds such as creaking wood and falling rocks, mixing them with familiar and surprising, almost alien sounds. The process of transforming sounds with data is similar to creating music from a score.
Data from ESA’s Swarm satellites are being used to better understand how the Earth’s magnetic field is generated. Satellites measure magnetic signals not only from the core, but also from the mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere. These data are crucial for studying phenomena such as geomagnetic reversals and the Earth’s internal dynamics.
The sound of the Earth’s magnetic field, the first version of the magnetic field sonification created from Swarm data, was originally played through a system of 32 speakers installed in a public square in Copenhagen, each representing changes in the magnetic field at different locations around the world over the past 100,000 years.
According to phys.org
