Did you know that the singing Sun makes the Earth ring
like a bell?
Apparently the vibrations and oscillations within the sun
that I wrote about in last week’s blog generate sympathetic waves in our Earth,
its atmosphere and its magnetic field, making them vibrate as well.
This discovery is the result of research conducted during
the Ulysses mission, a joint venture by NASA and the European Space Agency. Together they designed and launched a robotic
space probe, Ulysses, named after the hero (aka Odysseus) of Homer’s epic poems
the Iliad and the Odyssey, to study the Sun.
The Ulysses mission, launched in 1990 aboard the space
shuttle Discovery, ended in 2009 as the power output became too low to keep the
fuel from freezing. But in its years in
space it made some fascinating discoveries about the Sun and its interactions
with Earth. In extremely simplified form
(mainly because this is way over my head) the lead Ulysses researchers think
that the Sun’s sound-generating pressure and gravity waves are picked up by its
magnetic field and then carried through space as part of the solar wind. As the
solar wind reaches our atmosphere it causes vibrations in and
around the Earth. Ulysses was able to
detect these signals. In fact, even planet-based
technological systems can sense the vibrations in the Earth’s magnetic field and
in the planet itself.
Modern orchestras tune to A above middle C, at 440 Hertz. (It’s common among musicians to refer to “A
440,” especially since early music specialists typically tune to an A that is
slightly lower.) The tones ringing out
from our Earth are far, far deeper than that, fully twelve octaves below the range
of human hearing, which means they are somewhere in the 100-5000 microhertz
range (a microhertz is one millionth of a hertz). That means one frequency vibration every 11 ½ days!
How is it that the ancient Greeks grasped the truth of
something we are only just now discovering?
From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This Universal Frame began;
When Nature underneath a heap
of jarring Atomes lay,
And could not
heave her Head,
The tuneful Voice was heard from high,
‘Arise, ye
more than dead.’
Then cold and hot and moist and dry
In order to their Stations leap,
And MUSICK’S
power obey.
From Harmony,
from heavenly Harmony
This Universal Frame began:
From
Harmony to Harmony
Through all the Compass of the Notes it ran,
The Diapason closing full in Man.
First
verse from A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day
John
Dryden, 1687
Dr. Linda Gingrich
Artistic director and conductor
Master Chorus Eastside
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