Astronomy started out as a purely visual science, but with today’s electronics and techniques, the visually impaired can enjoy and contribute. But that really isn’t what I am referring to as “listening to astronomy” here. It used to be that you to take classes, or else had to be in the right place at the right time to hear a talk on astronomy. But with the Internet, there are many resources for “hearing” astronomy.
Of course you can hear astronomy information on the Clear Voices Podcasts here on Earth & Sky, as well as the Earth & Sky radio shows online and on broadcast radio stations around the world. In addition to astronomy, the Earth & Sky podcasts offer programs on a range of science and nature topics.
And there is AstronomyCast by Earth & Sky bloggers Frasier Cain and Pamela L. Gay.
But what really got me to thinking about this was the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, a series of audio podcasts by eminent astronomers, from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Among the recent lectures are Dr. Jeff Moore (NASA Ames Research Center): “New Horizons at Jupiter (and Some Saturn News)”; Dr. David Morrison (NASA Ames Research Center): “Taking a Hit: Asteroid Impacts and Evolution”; Dr. Dana Backman (SETI Institute and Astronomical Society of the Pacific): “A Ringside Seat to the Formation of Planets”; and Dr. David Grinspoon (Denver Museum of Nature and Science): “Comparing Worlds: Climate Catastrophes in the Solar System”.
You may already be familiar with Science at NASA, and there are also podcasts from the main NASA site, as well as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Well, that was just a start. I did a little “Googling” and was amazed to find all the places you can “hear” astronomy. You might want to do a little searching for yourself. If the links above don’t give you enough to listen to, check out these:
The San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers, home of the world-famous John Dobson, offers suggestions on its podcast page. I also found the “Astronomy Media Player,” which is actually web page with links to a number of astronomy and space podcasts from around the world.
If you have time to listen to more than this, I’m sure a little searching will turn up much more. What are your favorite links?
great article. a few years ago i bought 2 cds of the sounds of voyager. and recently looked on you tube and found recordings of sound within human hearing ranges, that exist in interstellar space. at least i rthink it was youtube.
Sam,
Actually, there are many “sounds” in space, if by “sound” you mean acoustic energy (which is what causes the sensation of sound in the ear). Unlike light and other forms of electromagnetic energy, sound cannot travel through empty space. However, there are many examples of acoustic energy in gas clouds out in space. Most of what I have heard about is lower in frequency, but no doubt higher pitched waves are common. By the way, there are acoustic waves in the atmospheres of stars like the Sun, and the study of such acoustic waves helps us probe the interior of the Sun much like earthquake waves help seismologists study the interior of the Earth. (Of couse, we cannot actually hear these waves, but we can see their results in various features on the Sun.)
LS
i was afraid someone would mistake my entry of ” the sounds of voyager” for the record on board. what i mean is the sounds picked up by inferometers and other devices that voyager holds. the sounds i refer to are audible but only if there were an atmosphere to conduct these sounds.my comment was hasty and not well thought out. you are correct the interstellar medium cannot allow sound to transmit thru space however there are many sounds that human devices can translate and they are as strange as one could expect.i would suggest anyone interested to look further into sounds produced in space or some other search entry.
Well, truth is, any form of vibratory energy can be converted into the range of human hearing, and in fact there are people doing things like that simply to study them. I don’t mean to seem picky, but in science there is a need to be precise and clear in meaning, and so far as possible avoid things that could be easily misinterpreted. (On the other hand, science has some very odd traditions that are not at all “normal” and which are easily misinterpreted by non-scientists. For example, physicists and astronomers often refer to any type of electromagnetic wave, including radio waves and microwaves, as “light.” In astronomy, it is traditional to refer to any element other than hydrogen and helium as “metals”! Go figure!)
But regarding energy forms that are converted in audible sounds, I prefer not to refer to those things as “sounds” simply because it can cause some to misinterpret what that means and think that indeed there are audible sounds to be heard in many circumstances where there really are not. If you change some varying electromagnetic field into an auditory sound, you certainly hear something, but what you are hearing is just a representation of the original, but of course not the original itself. So in that instance — say the “sound” of some electromagnetic field in space — the original thing is certainly not a sound in normal terms.
However, by any reasonable definition there are sounds — that would be audible to human ears if the other environmental circumstances allowed — in and on other planets, stars and their atmospheres, and even dense gas clouds in space.
By the way, many years ago I had a 33 rpm record of the “music” of Earth’s geomagnetic field. Someone had taken seismograph or some other instrument’s data and converted it into audible sounds, and indeed it did almost have a weird musical ring to it!
Larry S.