Scientists transformed three years of solar flares into sound: discover how they sound in this video.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an audiovisual representation of solar activity over the past three years. This was achieved using data from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, as reported by Space.

One of the primary manifestations of solar activity is solar flares. These are eruptions of energy and radiation that constantly occur on our star but vary in intensity. Solar flares are triggered by the reconfiguration of magnetic field lines and are associated with the emergence of sunspots on our star. These are dark areas on the Sun consisting of cooler plasma.

When sunspots are facing Earth, flares can negatively impact our planet, as such radiation bursts often disrupt radio communications and can occasionally interfere with the operation of satellites in low Earth orbit.

Scientists categorize solar flares into five classes based on their relative strength, with the most powerful being classified as X-class flares. Over the past few months, there have been many such flares as our star has entered a phase of solar maximum. This is the period of greatest solar activity, expected to last until early next year.

Researchers from ESA took observational data of the Sun from the past three years, gathered by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, and converted it into sound that can be heard by humans. At the same time, they synchronized the audio with images of our star to create a video.

The video features blue circles appearing on the surface of the Sun, accompanied by sounds associated with each of these circles. As we approach 2024, the frequency of these blue circles increases.

To create the video, scientists utilized images from two instruments on the Solar Orbiter: STIX (Spectroscopic Telescope for Imaging X-rays) and EUI (Extreme Ultraviolet Imager). STIX captured the location and size of the X-ray emissions produced by the flares, represented by the blue circles. The EUI instrument displays the Sun's outer atmosphere in yellow.

The increase in the frequency and size of solar flares is linked to the impending solar maximum.

As for the scale changes in the video, where the Sun appears to grow larger and then smaller, this is due to the Solar Orbiter having an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one. Every six months, the spacecraft gets closer to the Sun. Scientists represented this approach with sound, which becomes louder.