About 41,000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic field reversed during what is known as the Laschamp event. Here is a sound reconstruction from ESA.
About 41,000 years agothe Earth’s magnetic field reversed during what scientists call Laschamp event. During this time, it has weakened significantly, dropping to as little as 5% of its current strength. This allowed cosmic rays to reach Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists from the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Center for Geosciences used data from ESA’s Swarm mission to create a sound reconstruction of the Laschamp event.
How they did it
Scientists mapped the movement of Earth’s magnetic field lines during the event and created a stereo sound version that you can hear in the video. The sound was created using recordings of natural noises such as creaking wood and falling rocks, in a mix between familiar and mysterious, almost alien sounds. The process of transforming sounds with data is similar to composing music from a sheet of music. Data from ESA’s Swarm constellation is being used to better understand how Earth’s magnetic field is generated. Satellites measure magnetic signals not only from the core, but also from the mantle, crust, oceans and up to Earth’s ionosphere and magnetosphere.
The dynamics of the Earth
This data is fundamental for studying phenomena such as geomagnetic reversals and the Earth’s internal dynamics. of the Earth’s magnetic field, the first version of sonification produced with Swarm data, was originally played via a 32-speaker system installed in a public square in Copenhagen. Each speaker represented changes in the magnetic field in different places around the world over the past 100,000 years.
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