Audio Analysis

Once again, I am away from my home equipment and lab, so I will do something on my computer, using only what I have available: my computer and an Internet connection.

I have had Audacity, an audio manipulation software, on my computer for a long time now. It allows you to edit sound very simply.



In 2005 NASA's Cassini space probe picked up a rather odd radio emission from Saturn. In fact, similar emissions have been picked up by Cassini since 2002. Hear these sounds at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-072505.html

Undoubtedly eerie, and fascinating. To the untrained ear it would sound as if aliens were trying to communicate with us. As exciting as this would be, there is a more logical explanation. As you will read in the above link, the sounds picked up were very similar to that of Earth's aurora borealis. Thus, we can logically conclude that the emissions received are the result of a natural phenomenon, though exactly what is still in debate as NASA explains:

"The terrestrial cousins of Saturn's radio emissions were first reported in 1979 by Gurnett, who used an instrument on the International Sun-Earth Explorer spacecraft in Earth orbit. Kurth said that despite their best efforts, scientists still haven't agreed on a theory to fully explain the phenomenon. "

To get a closer look at these emissions put them into a program called Audacity. After downloading it, the easiest way to get the emissions into the software would be to play it in a quiet area while recording in Audacity.

It should look something like this:



You can now alter it and experiment with the "Effect" menu in the toolbar.



You can zoom in and out to increase and decrease the detail of the audio. Some of the smaller lines remind me of an oscillope. See them here:



Regrettably, there is no hidden secret to detect, nor is there a message to decode. However, you can play around with it, compare it to our Northern Lights's sound, and whatever else you want. I encourage you to think conceptually when analyzing this.

Please, by all means post your finding as a reply and I will relay any note worthy findings in a later post.

Good luck.