Stille

{A radio observatory
inside a 40 km quiet zone}

{Tuned to/}
81.500 MHz · Stille

{Sound}

Jupiter

Planet
Decametric emission · 10–40 MHz

The loudest radio source in the sky after the Sun, and it is right next door.

06 / 06

← All stations {Each line = 0.5 s of spectrum}
Catalogue
Decametric emission · 10–40 MHz
Type
Planet
We listen at
20.100 MHz
Period
Bursts, paced by Io
Distance
35 – 52 light-minutes
Discovered
1955
By
Bernard Burke & Kenneth Franklin, by accident
Position
Moves with the planet
On the ecliptic
From Stilledal
Low in the south, some winters. We use the dipole field, not the dish.

Jupiter's magnetic field is twenty thousand times stronger than Earth's. When its moon Io swings through it, electrons are flung along the field lines and the planet shouts.

The long bursts, L-bursts, swell and fade over seconds, like waves. The short ones, S-bursts, last a few thousandths of a second and arrive in crackling showers.

For Jupiter we leave the dish and walk out to the dipole field: 64 wires on posts in the snow, tuned to 20.1 MHz. It only speaks on some nights. When it does, nobody talks.

{What it sounds like}

Surf on a shingle beach, then popcorn.

{Headphones help. The sound is synthesized from the real period and profile.}