An alien's view of Earth

 

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Posted on 1 Mar 2001 at 16:38

If there are aliens monitoring us from out in space, what they might be listening to is the noise of the earth's atmosphere: the hiss and buzz of escaping radio waves. Now you can share a similar experience via the Web.

The New York Times reports that NASA has installed a very low frequency (VLF) radio receiver on a tower at its Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, and this is connected to a computer that converts the signals to sound waves. The (QuickTime) real-time streaming audio can be heard here.

It's not just the whistles and crackles of human communications, either. You can throw in natural phenomena, too. Lightning, for example, emits low-frequency radio waves with every strike.

According to Dr. Dennis Gallagher, a researcher at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre: "Everyone's terrestrial environment almost literally sings with radio waves at audio frequencies. Our ears can't detect radio waves directly, but we can convert them to sound waves with the aid of a very low frequency radio receiver."

The site advises that you can hear "sferics" (atmospheric sounds) and other VLF radio sounds at any time of the day, but that the hours around dawn and dusk are the best.

Author: Alun Williams