- The European Space Agency released five minutes of haunting audio from Earth's magnetic field.
- Scientists took magnetic signals measured by ESA satellites and converted them to sound.
The European Space Agency this week released five minutes of haunting, crackling audio — revealing what Earth's magnetic field sounds like.
Earth's internal magnetism, called the magnetosphere, generates a comet-shaped field around the surface of the planet that provides protection from harmful solar and cosmic particle radiation, as well as erosion of the atmosphere by the solar wind, according to NASA.
Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark took magnetic signals, measured by ESA's Swarm satellite mission dedicated to surveying the magnetic field, and converted them to sound.
European Space Agency · The scary sound of Earth’s magnetic fieldThe resulting five-minute audio includes eerie creaks and crackling sounds, as well as deep breathing-like sounds that listeners on social media described as "petrifying" and "spine tingling freaky."
Since the discovery was revealed on October 24, loudspeakers at Solbjerg Square in Copenhagen, Denmark, have broadcasted the recording three times a day. Plans are to continue playing it each day at 8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 7 p.m. through October 30.
"We gained access to a very interesting sound system consisting of over 30 loudspeakers dug into the ground at the Solbjerg Square in Copenhagen," musician and project supporter Klaus Nielsen, from the Technical University of Denmark, told the European Space Agency about the live installation of the recording.
"The rumbling of Earth's magnetic field is accompanied by a representation of a geomagnetic storm that resulted from a solar flare on 3 November 2011, and indeed it sounds pretty scary," Nielsen added.
Representatives of the European Space Agency and of the Technical University of Denmark did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.