The audio clip comprises data from a newly-launched NASA mission

Sep 21, 2012 15:25 GMT  ·  By

Experts at NASA recently released a short video clip that details how Earth's magnetosphere sounds like. The audio file was compiled from data relayed back to Mission Control by the twin Radiation Belt Storm Probe (RBSP) spacecraft.

The Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS) instruments on the two satellites were responsible for collecting the audible-range radio waves released by the magnetosphere.

The science team behind the instruments is made up of researchers at the University of Iowa and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland. They merged all EMFISIS data on a single track, for continuity.

According to experts, these sounds are produced by radio waves that are emitted from energetic particles within the magnetosphere, under the influence of solar and cosmic radiation, and that of Earth's Van Allen radiation belts.