Sound in space?

[Nimzabaat]

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/universe/black_hole_sound.html

That's an interesting article. So if sound does travel through the gases in space, does that mean that a space battle would be audible? Would it also mean that a battle would become "louder" as the fighting progressed, more ships were destroyed and the various gases inside them got vented into space? Just a concept i'm playing around with. Opinions?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I don't think the amount of gas released by ships would be enough to make anything audible, unless the entire universe is filled with gas, you'd never hear anything because as a soon as there's a gap in that gas, the sound would just stop.

 

[Nimcha]

A frequency of 10 million years? Wow. I don't think you can compare that to actual audible sound.

 

[Nimzabaat]

"You may be wondering how a sound wave can travel through space. After all, sound waves require some sort of stuff to move through. This stuff, called a medium, can be air, water, or even solid rock. And space is thought of as lacking any medium because it is a vacuum.

In fact, space is not a pure vacuum but rather it contains stray bits of stuff -- gas atoms and dust of varying amounts. In the case of the Perseus cluster, the gas throughout it serves as the medium through which the sound waves coming from the central black hole travel."

I wasn't trying to open a debate about the science of NASA's findings. I was simply thinking that as a space ship is destroyed it's "stray bits of stuff" make subsequent explosions audible. As more ships are destroyed their "stray bits of stuff" become a cloud around the battle which sound could possibly travel through. Yes, I know we can't hear the black hole. I never said that was possible. I also know that actual lasers don't make any sound either. Explosions, however, are noisy. Not drawn out noisy like hollywood portrays them, but noisy nonetheless. So simply theorizing that a space battle should start quiet and get louder as it progresses. Just a theory.

 

[caselj01]

Maybe it would be audible if the space battle took place within a gas cloud thats already there? like the one in the article?

 

[teisjm]

Theopretically, the mroe matter/medium present, the more noisy.
Remember, that teh space ships was there in the first palce, so the amount of matte does not increase, it just gets spread mroe evenly out.

If you pulverized a space ship there would me more spread matter in the area, and would make sounds "noiseier" but whetehr or not that woul dbe enough to make them audible i cannot say.

Also, unless you spray oxygen out of teh space ship where teh explosion is gonan be,you'll only have explostions inside teh ships, since they require oxygen to exist.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Just a concept i'm playing around with. Opinions?

My thoughts (not facts).

In a space battle, every ship destroyed would make an explosion/bang that was audible to other ships within either the exhaust trail (if it had one) of the destroyed ship or the ball of atmosphere venting from the ship. It would dissipate extremely rapidly though as the gasses disperse into the vacuum, so the sound would appear to be cut short.

For detecting and 'hearing' other ships you have to think a bit more laterally. Sound wouldn't travel in the traditional sense, but light would. To detect the sound of other ships the detector would have to fire lasers of some description in all directions and listen for/to fluctuations in the pingbacks. Like a vibration based radar (or a lot like Kinect). We can already do this on earth and as light can travel in vacuum I see no reason it wouldn't work in space, provided the surface of the objects the lasers strike vibrate in some way (say, the cliche engine rumble).

No actual reasearch behind that, just my thoughts.

 

[fix-the-spade]

A spacecraft conducting a battle is going to glow like a furnace.

Ah, but what if the space ship latches onto something and switches off Millenium Falcon style? The surface at least of the ship would get cold pretty quickly. Maybe not battle appropriatte, but a thought for detection/infiltration. Such a device would certainly help Mass Effect's baddies stop the Normandy sneaking up on them all the time.

Yes Rak, I'm arguing about hypotheticals, long live the internet!

 

[Nimzabaat]

Okay here's something interesting because someone brought up the idea of LIDAR (er laser radar basically, i'm too lazy to look up the whole acronym). LIDAR is apparently real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa

Um the specific line about the Hayabusa using LIDAR to locate the asteroid isn't made up, I swear I read it somewhere. Anyways that probe had LIDAR, an Ion Drive, solar panels and a gun on it. It's a prototype TIE Fighter! Okay not really but feel free to geek out over it.

 

[Xojins]

It wouldn't actually make audible sound; there's not enough stuff in space for a sound wave to travel very far. Space is mostly... empty space.