Scientists have reproduced the “singing” of the Earth’s magnetic field when the poles changed 41 thousand years ago

Translating ultra-high and high frequencies into sounds audible to the human ear is not just entertainment or a new art form. For scientists, this is an opportunity to study an array of certain data in a new way, which can lead, if not to new discoveries, then to a better understanding of processes. Therefore, we can naturally hear the singing of stars, black holes and wind from the plasma. Now we can also hear the singing of the Earth’s magnetic field during a strange event 41 thousand years ago.

Image source: European Space Agency

Then, at the very beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, the Earth’s magnetic field “suddenly” – within a few hundred years – made a reversible change of poles. The incident was scientifically called the Lachamp event. At the most critical moment of the transition, the magnetic field weakened to about 6% or even more, which allowed cosmic rays to reach the surface of the planet and its interior without interference and leave their mark in the form of a series of isotopes. Actually, based on the ratio of these isotopes, scientists are now reconstructing a short-term reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Center for Geosciences have translated the dynamics and intensity of the pole reversal into sound, imagining it as the grinding of boulders and the creaking of wood. They argue that this provides a better understanding of how this process took place. To do this, scientists used observation data on the Earth’s field from the European Swarm mission and others, for example, geological ones.

The sound of the Earth’s magnetic field is the first time a planet’s magnetic field has been sounded using Swarm data. For the first time, scientists reproduced this “symphony” in a city square in Copenhagen through a system of 32 speakers. At the same time, each speaker played changes in the magnetic field in different parts of the world over the past 100,000 years.