Scientists puzzled by mysterious sounds of unknown origin recorded in Earth’s atmosphere

The balloons have recorded mysterious sounds of “completely unknown” origin high in Earth’s atmosphere.

Scientists including Daniel Bowman of Sandia National Laboratories in the US have sent large balloons 6-7 meters long into the stratosphere, a relatively calm layer of the Earth’s atmosphere located 10 to 50 km above the Earth’s surface, which is rarely affected by aircraft or aircraft. aircraft riots.

In this layer of Earth’s outer atmosphere, scientific instruments in balloons can pick up a range of sounds that are not heard anywhere else, including the natural sounds of crashing ocean waves and thunder, as well as man-made sounds such as wind turbines or explosions.

While balloons can detect such human and environmental sounds, scientists have reported that they can also record some strange sounds that cannot be recognized.

They discovered a mysterious noise of unknown origin. According to the team, the “ultrasonic” noise is inaudible to the human ear, like infrared light invisible to the human eye.

He showed that when the sound was recorded with special instruments and accelerated several thousand times, it sounded like a muffled whisper.

Scientists have separated this mysterious noise from other sounds picked up in the area, such as the sound of ocean waves colliding with each other.

“There are mysterious ultrasonic signals in the stratosphere that occur several times an hour, but their origin is completely unknown,” Dr. Bowman said in a statement.

Balloons, originally designed to monitor volcanoes on Earth, can collect data and detect low-frequency infrasonic waves using micrometers.

Scientists have tracked these balloons using the Global Positioning System (GPS), so they can sometimes travel hundreds of miles and land in hard-to-reach places.

Dr. Bowman explained: “When the sun illuminates the dark balloons, the air inside heats up and becomes active. This solar energy is enough to lift balloons from the surface more than 20 km (66,000 feet) into the sky.”

The scientists said their balloons could also help explore other planets. And they developed the theory of using these balloons to observe the seismic and volcanic activity of Venus through its thick atmosphere.

“A new generation of Venus balloons is currently being developed that can operate for over 100 days and can change their altitude to travel through different layers of Venus’s atmosphere,” the team wrote.

As part of their next phase of experimentation, they hope to catalog signals like those found on Venus and develop tools that can automatically identify signals of interest.

Source: Independent