Mercury's Cosmic Symphony: Scientists Eavesdrop On Mysterious 'Singing' Plasma Waves

Scientists have discovered mysterious "singing" plasma waves around Mercury. In planets with a magnetosphere, instruments can help us listen to chorus waves that have found in Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn. Such musical waves have also been observed around Uranus and Neptune.

Now, a team of astronomers from Japan and France, led by Mitsunori Ozaki of Kanazawa University, has detected these waves whistling around Mercury.

NASA

Why are these waves on Mercury special?

Why is this peculiarly interesting? Other planets where such musical waves were found have thick atmospheres and radiation belts wherein solar particles become trapped.

According to scientists, this discovery could help shed light on the magnetic environment around Mercury, and explain how planetary magnetic fields might be shaped by the solar wind.

Also read: Breathtaking Close-Ups Of Mercury Show Solar System's Innermost Planet In Detail

In Mercury's case, there's not much of a magnetic field. It's essentially a big rock with a pretty much non-existent atmosphere. Situated too close to the Sun, the planet is constantly in the face of solar radiation and wind.

What have we learnt earlier?

Just this year, scientists found that Mercury, even with its dismal magnetic field and atmosphere, has auroras of its own kind. Even before that, scientists believed that Mercury might have chorus waves that occur when energetic electrons get trapped in the magnetosphere.

These waves may be recorded and converted into sounds depending on how and where the electrons are moving. In the video below, you can hear an example of whistler waves recorded at Earth.

NASA

Knowledge of Mercury and its atmosphere remains sparse. The Mercury BepiColombo mission, launched in 2018, has an instrument called MIO that studies the Mercurian magnetosphere.

Also read: Are Ancient Remains Of Mercury Hiding On Earth? Here's Why Scientists Think So

The instrument is not in orbit yet, but scientists found evidence of whistler-mode waves in Mercury's magnetosphere, even if they appeared in a small area known as the dawn sector.

NASA

This means that some physical mechanism is promoting the creation of chorus waves in that region, or suppressing them elsewhere. They found that modelling and simulations determined that the transfer of energy from electrons to electromagnetic waves is more efficient in Mercury's dawn sector that generates whistles, according to Science Alert.

The research was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. What do you think about this discovery about Mercury? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.