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We hear and enjoy many different types of music through the radio, opera, orchestra, and music festivals. But what does the Universe sound like? Is it funky, popular, soul, blue, jazz or folk? Or is it like Bach, Beethoven, or Rachmaninoff? Why not join us to find out!
Sounds of the Sun and its Changing Activity
Professor Bill Chaplin
(Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Birmingham)
The Sun is playing its own stellar symphony, resonating like a musical instrument due to sound waves that are generated and trapped within its interior. We can “listen” to the resulting resonances by detecting the gentle oscillations of the Sun’s surface that the trapped waves give rise to. We will see how these oscillations open a unique window on the Sun’s usually hidden interior, providing important information on what powers the Sun’s magnetic activity and its interactions with the Earth, so-called “space weather”.
Listening to the Universe: How improvements to gravitational wave observatories enabled multi-messenger astronomy
Mr Aaron Jones
(Astrophysicist at the University of Birmingham )
Improvements to laser gravitational wave observatories such as LIGO and Virgo enable us to hear the motion of massive objects in the universe such as neutron stars and black holes. For the first time ever we are able to see the collisions of such objects as well as hearing the effects on the universe.
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