SOUNDS OF THE SUN / TV ADVISORY

* How listening can reveal everything from temperature to composition

* Share the amazing sights & sounds of the Sun with your audience!

What does the Sun sound like? Why are scientists listening to it? Because watching and listening to the Sun is actually the best way to learn about its temperature, chemical makeup, pressure and interior motions. Much like a doctor listens to a heartbeat, scientists called helioseismologists have answered questions like why the Sun’s outer atmosphere is over 100 times hotter than the solar surface. As an aid to space weather prediction, helioseismology gives scientists a window to see through the Sun to observestormy regions on its far side. This allows for up to a week’s advance notice of events like coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that can affect communications satellites, power and navigation systems.

Sound can’t travel through the vacuum of space, so the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) aboard the SOHO satellite measures the movements of the surface of the Sun. Using these motions, scientists reconstruct the sound and can make it audible by speeding them up some 42,000 times and compressing 40 days’ worth of vibrations into a few seconds.

Solar Physicist Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute will be available 6-10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, February 21, 2001 to discuss the sights and sounds of our great star.

Ask Craig about the solar sounds:

* What is a helioseismology? What does the Sun sound like? (vis: sounds of the Sun)

* What have scientists learned by listening to the Sun? (vis: looking inside the Sun montage)

* How do these sounds explain the huge difference in temperature between the Sun’s outer atmosphere and its surface? (vis: gigantic fountains of fire)

* What are sunquakes and how do they relate to solar sounds? (vis: sunquake)

* The Sun seems so different from Earth, but actually a lot of the discoveries made have proved otherwise. How are the two similar? (vis: trade winds, rotation rates)

* We’re currently in the peak of the 11-year solar cycle. Does all the extra activity affect the sounds that you’re picking up from the Sun? (vis: solar max)

Book a Window: Rachel Weintraub, 301-286-0918. TV Control Room (Wednesday), 301-286-6146.

Web Links: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/solarsounds.htm 

The interviews: Broadcast from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD on NASA TV at: GE-2, transponder 9C, C-Band, 85*W longitude, vertical polarization, 3880.0 mhtz.

B-Roll will be fed at 5:50 a.m. ET on Wednesday, February 21; full video will run February 21 and 22 during the NASA-TV (GE-2 transponder 9C) Video File feed scheduled for noon, 3, 6, and 9 p.m. ET.