The Sound of Solar

What do highly charged particles flying out of the sun at a million miles-per-hour sound like? Researchers at the University of Michigan are creating music using data from the solar wind.

If you’ve ever seen the aurora borealis, you’ve seen evidence of the solar wind – the constant stream of hot, charged particles flowing into space from the atmosphere of the sun. Now you can listen to it, too. Members of The Solar and Heliospheric Research Group at the University of Michigan are using the solar wind as musical inspiration. Host Jeff Young speaks with composer Robert Alexander and space science research fellow Jason Gilbert about how to make music from celestial data.