Scientists Tune In to the Sun's Symphony

(June 22) -- It's a collection of hot new songs from our galaxy's greatest star. No, we're not talking about the latest album from Beyonce or Lady Gaga but a batch of tracks from a performer with a lot more (solar) flare: the sun.

Scientists at Sheffield University in the north of England have released recordings of the sounds you might hear if you were hanging around the solar corona -- the outermost and least understood layer of the sun -- and could withstand temperatures topping 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And surprisingly, there's a lot more to be heard than simply the roar of a colossal furnace. The research team has detected beguiling harmonies that, as well as pleasing the ear, might help unlock some of the sun's secrets.

Satellite images have previously revealed that the solar corona features tubes of superheated gas known as coronal loops, which arch high above the sun's surface and can measure up to 60,000 miles long. These magnetic loops help stir up the corona, producing gas waves that eventually churn up solar flares -- atmospheric explosions that throw highly charged particles out into space.

Curiously, the coronal loops occasionally act like a few familiar earthbound instruments. Sometimes they vibrate from side to side, much like a guitar string being plucked. At other times, they expand and contract along their length, just as a wind instrument does when it's blown into.

To tune in to the duet's stellar performance, a team of researchers led by Robert von Fay-Siebenburgen, head of Sheffield, England's Solar Physics and Space Plasma Research Centre, assembled a library of high-resolution videos and photos of the sun's surface. Visual information was extracted from these satellite-harvested images -- such as the length and thickness of the loops, and their rate of vibration -- which was then fed into a computer and converted into audible data.

The frequency was then sped up so it would be audible to human ears. (This kind of computer conversion isn't unusual in space research. Algorithms are commonly used to turn raw data from satellites into visual representations for scientists and the public.)

After that lengthy process, Fay-Siebenburgen and his colleagues were left with several -- admittedly brief -- tunes. One 14-second clip uploaded by the university sounds like the Lucasfilm THX theme, which you might have heard at the start of special-effects-heavy movies. Another six-second sample could be the work of ambient music pioneer Brian Eno.

"It was strangely beautiful and exciting to hear these noises for the first time from such a large and powerful source," Fay-Siebenburgen told the London Daily Telegraph. "It is a sort of music, as it has harmonics."

Of course, the Sheffield-based scientists never embarked on the experiment with the aim of creating a collection of chart toppers. Instead, they hope this research will eventually help expand our knowledge of how coronal loops work, which in turn could allow for better prediction of solar flares. Any advance warning of these blasts would be useful for us earthlings, as solar storms can knock out satellites, communication equipment and overheat electrical grids.

But the sun shouldn't give up on a musical career. Perhaps Universal will give it a deal.