..:: symphony of the sun ::..

I read this article a couple months back and I thought it was pretty awesome at the time I first read it. Writing yesterday's post reminded me of it again, so I searched through my computer files and tracked it down.

Take a moment to read it over. It is pretty cool stuff and another testament of God's glory.

Here is the article in it's unedited format:

The Sun's Atmosphere Sings:

Astronomers have recorded heavenly music being bellowed out by the Sun's atmosphere.

Snagging orchestra seats for this solar symphony would be fruitless, however, as the frequency of the sound waves is below the human hearing threshold. While humans can make out sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz, the solar sound waves are on the order of milli-hertz--a thousandth of a hertz.

The study, presented this week at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Lancashire, England, reveals that the looping magnetic fields along the Sun's outer regions, called the corona, carry magnetic sound waves in a similar manner to musical instruments such as guitars or pipe organs.

Making music...

Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen of the Solar Physics and Space Plasma Research Center at the University of Sheffield and his colleagues combined information gleaned from sun-orbiting satellites with theoretical models of solar processes, such as coronal mass ejections.

They found that explosive events at the Sun's surface appear to trigger acoustic waves that bounce back and forth between both ends of the loops, a phenomenon known as a standing wave.

"These magnetic loops are analogous to a simple guitar string," von Fay-Siebenburgen explained. "If you pluck a guitar string, you will hear the music."

In the cosmic equivalent of a guitar pick, so-called microflares at the base of loops could be plucking the magnetic loops and setting the sound waves in motion, the researchers speculate. While solar flares are the largest explosions in the solar system, microflares are a million times smaller but much more frequent; both phenomena are now thought to funnel heat into the Sun's outer atmosphere.

The acoustic waves can be extremely energetic, reaching heights of tens of miles, and can travel at rapid speeds of 45,000 to 90,000 miles per hour. "These [explosions] release energy equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs," von Fay-Siebenburgen said.

"These energies are plucking these magnetic strings or standing pipes, which set up standing waves--exactly the same waves you see on a guitar string," von Fay-Siebenburgen told SPACE.com. The "sound booms" decay to silence in less than an hour, dissipating in the hot solar corona.

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So do you wanna know what melodies and verses the sun is singing? Science can't answer that for you, but I can...

It is written in Psalm 148...

¹Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights!

²Praise Him, all His angels, praise Him, all His hosts!

³Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all you stars of light!

⁴Praise Him, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens!

⁵Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created.

⁶He also established them forever and ever; He made a decree which shall not pass away [He fixed their bounds which cannot be passed over].

⁷Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps!

⁸You lightning, hail, fog, and frost, you stormy wind fulfilling His orders!

⁹Mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars!

¹⁰Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!

¹¹Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers and judges of the earth!

¹²Both young men and maidens, old men and children!

¹³Let them praise and exalt the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted and supreme! His glory and majesty are above earth and heaven!

¹⁴He has lifted up a horn for His people [giving them power, prosperity, dignity, and preeminence], a song of praise for all His godly ones, for the people of Israel, who are near to Him. Praise the Lord!

..:: let there be light ::..

Have you ever considered the complexities in the semblant “simplicities” of the world around you?

I’m afraid that most of us take for granted the incredibly intricate and complex design of the nature that our creator allows us to live in.

Take for example the simple yet miraculous concept of vision and light.

The complexities of the human eye and the behind the scenes processes that make vision possible are mind boggling in and of themselves and, in my opinion, provide irrefutable evidence that God exists. But what about the light spectrum itself?... the remarkable element of nature which gives us the ability to see things in the first place.

Many people fail to realize what a miracle the concept of light is. I can’t even begin to explain in this short post, all the complexities of how light works. Like how it can have both wave properties and particle properties… how it possesses mass when it travels which disappears when it stops, (allowing it to produce electricity from certain crystals and travel through a vacuum)… how it is one of the earths greatest and most enduring sources of energy… or how it serves as a catalyst which sparks life into a tiny seed and gives it the power to grow into a hearty plant which produces fruits and vegetables - the very foundation of our entire food chain.

Moreover, consider all the brilliant colors that we take for granted everyday? Did you ever wonder why you are able to see different colors? Humans are able to see colors, because our eyes have special structures called cones which allow us to differentiate between different light energies -- most animals do not possess this ability (outside of a select few such as birds, some insects, and apes). You and I are able to see different colors because light has different energies -- red light being of a lower energy than blue. The cone in your eye membrane is able to differentiate between these varying light energies and thus interpret different colors to your brain. The beauty of our world can be seen because of the different energies present in the light that surrounds us.

Amazing as light and human vision is, the invisible aspects of the light spectrum might be even more impressive yet...

The spectrum of light goes way beyond what your eyes are able to see. The full spectrum of light includes things such as radio waves, x-rays, infra-red… even music is a form of light.

The reason our eyes are not able to “see” things like music, or radio waves is because these “light waves” have a much lower energy level than what our eye is able to perceive. This lower energy allows radio waves to pass through things like the walls of our homes which visible light cannot do. That is why you are able to turn on electronic receivers inside your home and pick-up the radio waves that enable your televisions and radios to play sounds and images.

Microwaves are also a form of light -- again outside of our ability to see. These micro-waves cause water molecules within an object to pick up energy without changing anything else within the object. This allows us to cook our food, and pop our movie-snack popcorn.

X-rays are an even higher form of light energy which is beyond the realm of what our eyes can see. The energy in X-rays allows them to pass through our bodies and show us things we cannot see with our naked eyes alone. Infra-red light rays heat things up… ultraviolet light rays allow us to tan our skin and provide our bodies with life and health, and still other forms of very long light waves can be used for communication purposes.

Part of me thinks it would be awesome to be able to actually see with my eyes what some of my favorite music would look like, or to see through walls with infra-red vision. But God in his infinite wisdom has sheltered our eyes from these extremities in the spectrum of light. If our eyes could receive all of the light that exists around us, it would be impossible for us to find any peace. Even with our eyes closed, we would see a jumble of light waves piercing our eyes all of the time, including radio, TV, X-rays, microwaves, etc.

Isn’t it awesome how God created the human eye to only be perceptive to the band of light rays that allows us to see things and distinguish colors, etc. He also created our ears to pick up on the lower energy light rays which allow us to hear voices, music and the ambient sounds of nature.

When the Creator said, "Let there be light," it was a powerful statement and the start of a truly remarkable creation which sustains the entire physical cosmos in which we all live.

Praise God…the light of this world and the one to come!