According to the European Space Agency, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko seems to be emitting a ‘song’ in the form of oscillations in the magnetic field in the comet’s environment.
It is being sung at 40-50 millihertz, far below human hearing, which typically picks up sound between 20 Hz and 20 kHz.
To make the music audible to the human ear, the frequencies have been increased by a factor of about 10,000.
The scientists think it must be produced by the comet as it releases neutral particles into space where they become electrically charged due to a process called ionisation. But the reason behind the oscillations is a mystery.
The video is a looped set of images from a 25-minute time period from the 2016 data capture. It shows what seems to be cosmic dust and stars in the background.
Original Data Credit: ESA/Rosetta/RPC/RPC-MAG
Looped Gif: Twitter/X user @landru79
Sonification: TU Braunschweig/IGEP/Manuel Senfft, CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Comets are frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system composed of dust, rock, and ice. They range from a few miles to tens of miles wide, but as they orbit closer to the Sun, they heat up and spew gases and dust into a glowing head that can be larger than a planet. This material forms a tail that stretches millions of miles. There are currently 3,743 known comets.
