Jupiter

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NASA’s Juno spacecraft has observed plasma wave signals from Jupiter’s ionosphere. This display is a frequency-time spectrogram. The results in this figure show an increasing plasma density as Juno descended into Jupiter’s ionosphere during its close pass by Jupiter on 2 February 2017.

The intensity, or amplitude, of the waves is displayed based on the color scale shown on the right. The actual observed frequencies of these emissions approach 150 kHz, which is above the human hearing range. To bring these signals into the human audio range, the playback speed has been slowed by a factor of about 60.

The momentary, nearly pure tones follow a scale related to the electron density, and are likely associated with an interaction between the Juno spacecraft and the charged particles in Jupiter’s ionosphere. The exact source of these discrete tones is currently being investigated.

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/Univ. of Iowa

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Jupiter's auroras recorded by the space probe Juno on August 27-28, 2016. File in MPEG-4 format with the spectrum image. Source: NASA.

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Voyager 1 crossing Jupiter's Bow shock. The bow shock is nature's way of slowing, deflecting, and heating the solar wind as it runs into an object, in this case the jovian magnetosphere. Explanations

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Jovian bow shock recorded by Voyager 1 in 1979. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Voyager 2 passing through Jupiter outer magnetosphere

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Lightning in Jupiter's atmosphere recorded by plasma wave instrument onboard Voyager's spaceprobes

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Jovian whistlers. These sounds are audio frequency electromagnetic waves produced by lightning in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. Once produced, these waves travel along closed magnetic field lines from one hemisphere to the other in the right-hand polarized, whistler mode of propagation. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Jovian chorus. Chorus emissions are electromagnetic widebands emissions propagating in the right-hand polarized whistler mode. They are among the most intense plasma waves in the outer magnetosphere of Jupiter. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Jupiter hiss recording at 25.55 and 25.67 MHz by Altaïr.

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Jupiter tweeks recorded by the Cassini space probe in 2001. Document JPL

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Jupiter activity recorded at 20.1 and 21.2 MHz with a loop antenna on July 13, 1999 by Radio Jove Team at Greenbank, WV.

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Mix of L-burst and Io B-storm recorded at 20 MHz on March 10, 2002 by Radiosky

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Mix of S-burst and Io B-storm recorded at 20 MHz on March 10, 2002 by Radiosky

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Mix of Jupiter sound and Io B-storm recorded in stereo, at 22 MHz for the left channel, at 23 MHz for the right channel on March 3, 2002 by Thomas Ashcraft

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Mix of Jupiter C-activity and Io B-storm recorded on September 22, 2000 at 1240 UTC by WCC Hawaii

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Mix of Jupiter S-burst and Io B-storm recorded in stereo, at 21 MHz for the left channel, at 22 MHz for the right channel on September 9, 2000 by Thomas Ashcraft

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0834 UTC (0434 a.m. local time). Recorded by Thierry Lombry at 28-32 MHz using the receiver and antennas (Log-spiral "tee-pee" and Yagis) from University of Florida Radio Observatory (UFRO) connected to the Internet. Sampling at 44100 kHz, Stereo, 128 Kbps. Signal peak at -34.8 dB, or 35 times more powerful than the background hash (about -50 dB) !

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0810 UTC. Same conditions as previous. Signal peak at -38.3 dB

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0808 UTC. Same conditions as previous. Signal peak at -38 dB

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0802 UTC. Same conditions as previous. Signal peak at -35.2 dB

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0801 UTC. Same conditions as previous. Signal peak at -37.9 dB

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0754 UTC. Same conditions as previous. Signal peak at -38.2 dB

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0741 UTC Same conditions as previous. Signal peak at -34.6 dB

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Jupiter L-burst during Jupiter storm, February 23, 2004 at 0738 UTC. Same conditions as previous. Very powerful signal peaking at -33.3 dB

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Jupiter S-burst during Jupiter storm, February 22, 2004 at 0605 UTC. Same conditions as previous. Signal peak at -42 dB

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Jupiter S-bursts recorded on september 30, 2000 at 1419.5 UTC by WCC Hawaii

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Mixed of Jupiter S-bursts and Io B-storm recorded in stereo (shift of 300 kHz) by Thomas Ashcraft

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Jupiter S-burst recorded at 20.1 MHz by Thomas Ashcraft

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Mixed of Jupiter L-burst and Io B-storm recorded in stereo on March 7, 2001 at 0247 UTC by Thomas Ashcraft

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Jupiter L-burst in front of galactic radiation, recorded at UFRO

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Jupiter L-burst, recorded at UFRO

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Jupiter S-burst in front of galactic radiation, recorded at UFRO

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Jupiter S-burst, recorded at very low speed and rerun at high speed (128x), UFRO

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Jovian upstream ion acoustic waves. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Jovian electron cyclotron emission. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

Jovian satellites

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Plasma waves emitted by Ganymede magnetosphere discovered in 1996 by Galileo spaceprobe. The waveform has been played back at about a factor of 10 slower since the original recording had a bandwidth of 80 kHz and the human ear can only hear sounds up to about 10 or 20 kHz.

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Europa plasma waves, same recording conditions as previous. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Callisto plasma waves, same recording conditions as previous. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Ganymede plasma waves, same recording conditions as previous but with spectral analysis. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

Saturn and its satellites

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The sound of Enceladus, the 6th largest Saturn's moon, recorded by the space probe Cassini. The space probe detected gigantic plumes of water vapor and a significant atmosphere around this moon in 2005. This recording was extracted from ion cyclotron waves converted in audio waves. Document NASA.

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The sound of Saturn auroras recorded by the space probe Cassini in April 2002 when it was 2.5 AU from the planet. These structures indicate that there are numerous small radio sources moving along magnetic field lines threading the auroral region. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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The sound of Saturn closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet recorded by the space probe Cassini in April 2002 when it was 2.5 AU from the planet. In this example, the three rising tones are launched from the more slowly varying narrowband emission that represents a very complicated interaction between waves in Saturn's radio source region (note that one of these waves has also been observed on Earth). Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Recording of Saturn radio emissions monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. Time on this recording has been compressed, so that 73 seconds corresponds to 27 minutes. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group

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Recording of an intense lightning storm developing over the equatorial region of Saturn on January 16, 2006 between 23-01h TU. The time was compressed by a factor of about 260. That is, this 28 second clip represents two hours of Cassini observations. The actual occurrence rate of the flashes during the peak of this storm is about one every two seconds. The crackles you hear are akin to the crackles that you can hear on a AM radio (0.5-3 MHz) during a thunderstorm on Earth. It was recorded by the radio and plasma instrument (RPWS) onboard Cassini spacecraft on frequencies between 2-16 MHz. According to scientists, such radio bursts are perhaps 1000 times stronger than terrestrial lightnings ! Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group

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Cassini spacecraft crossing Saturn ring plane between rings A and F (external) on the sun side. It is the inbound, i.e. from down to up to the "inside". Here are detail of the trajectory. What we hear are impacts of small dust particles on the spacecraft. The relative speed between the dust particles and Cassini during these times is about 16 km/s. When the dust hits Cassini, there is sufficient kinetic energy released that the dust particle and even a tiny part of Cassini  is vaporized, creating a gas with a temperature of order 100,000°C.  This is sufficient to ionize at least part of the gas and, subsequently, the expanding cloud of ionized gas (plasma) induces a signal that can be recorded by Cassini antennas. This rapidly expanding plasma cloud was detected in a band of frequencies from a few Hz to 10 kHz. As far as the difference between the inbound and outbound recording (see below), the primary difference is that the impact rate was higher outbound than inbound. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Cassini spacecraft crossing Saturn ring plane between rings A and F (external) on the sun side. It is the outbound, i.e. from up to down to the "outside". Here are detail of the trajectory. Sale explanation as previous recording. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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The sound of Saturn rotation. These signals were recorded over a five day interval, from 2-7 June 2004 during Cassini-Huygens approach to Saturn. These low frequencies radio emissions called Saturn Kilometric Radiation (SKR) are generated by charged particles whose motions are controlled by the planetary magnetic field. It was recorded over the South pole open field force of Saturn. This recording made at frequencies ranging from 100 to 300 kHz were shifted down to 0-3 kHz and speeding up the recording so that 1 second corresponds to one rotation. The average rotation period obtained this way is 10 hr 45 min 45 ± 36 sec, or 6 minutes longer that during Voyager flybys of Saturn. Document U.Iowa/RPWS Group.

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Cassini's magnetometer instrument detected an atmosphere around Enceladus during the Feb. 17, 2005, flyby and again during a March 9, 2005, flyby. This audio file is based on the data collected from that instrument.

Ion cyclotron waves are organized fluctuations in the magnetic field that provide information on what ions are present. Cassini's magnetometer detected the presence of these waves in the vicinity of Saturn's moon Enceladus. This audio file shows the power of these waves near Enceladus. Document NASA/JPL.

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The sound of Titan recorded by the microphone (ACU) fixed on Huygens spaceprobe on Jan 14, 2005 from early in the descent through the atmosphere. The record was played back at the actual rate at which the data were recorded. Some event during the descent causes an amplitude (loudness) increase in the recorded sound. Document ESA and The Planetary Society

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The sound of Titan recorded during the descent of Huygens spaceprobe on Jan 14, 2005 by the ACU. We hear a lot of acoustic noises. Document ESA and The Planetary Society

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By comparison, the sound of the wind recorded on Earth with the ACU during the descent of a test ballon and played back at realtime.We hear a combination of wind and microphone system noise. Document ESA and The Planetary Society

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The sound of Titan recorded the descent of Huygens spaceprobe on Jan 14, 2005. This is a reconstruction of a signal generated by the Huygens radar altimeter. We hear a "blanking signal" until the radar achieves a "lock," which means that the radar signal returned from the surface was detected and exceeded a pre-defined signal-to-noise level. Higher is the pich closer is the surface. A very exciting recording. Document ESA and The Planetary Society

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This sound sample overlaps the landing of Huygens on Jan 14, 2005, at which point all becomes much more quiet. The landing occurs as a slow fade of sound rather than a sharp "thud" because of the 2-second, or lower, resolution of the sound data, and because Delory's sound processing algorithm is designed to smooth amplitude jumps in the acoustic sensor data. Document ESA and The Planetary Society

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The sound of Titan recorded after the landing of Huygens on Jan 14, 2005. Document ESA and The Planetary Society