One year ago, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted, causing widespread destruction to the Pacific Island Nation of Tonga. It spewed volcanic material up to 58 km into the atmosphere, brought a nearly 15 m tsunami that crashed ashore, destroying villages, and created a sonic boom that rippled around the world – twice. 

Even one year on, interest in the extraordinary explosive eruption remains. A sound artist has recently recreated the sonification of the underwater volcanic eruption using rayleigh signal intensity data provided by the Aeolus Virtual Research Environment platform.

Using wind data obtained on one of its overpasses over the ash cloud of the Hunga Tonga explosion, Jamie Perera used an audio sample of one of the shock waves, time-stretched it into a ghostly tone, and assigned it to harmonic values transcribed from 90 Aeolus readings taken over a duration of approximately 15 minutes. 
The listener hears one reading every two seconds, in a harmonic range that spans six piano octaves, the highest of which can be heard at around 01:18 minutes when the readings show the eruption’s dust plume at its highest peak (over 20.5 km). The artistic intention behind the sonification was to evoke the otherworldly landscape of Hunga Tonga and other volcanoes. 

Sonification credit/copyright: @jamieperera (2023). Used by permission. Data and guidance provided by Daniel Santillan. Thanks to Peter Bickerton and Jemma Foster. Originally created as part of Wild Alchemy Journal - Air Edition - Aeolus

Sound of the Hunga Tonga Volcanic Eruption

The ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission has been keeping a close eye on the Sun for more than three years, witnessing it becoming increasingly active as it approaches the peak in the 11-year solar cycle. This audio is a sonification based on the detected flares and the spacecraft's distance to the Sun.   

This audio is a sonification based on the detected flares (metallic clinks) and the spacecraft's distance to the Sun (background hum).

Sound design: Klaus Nielsen (@maplepools) 
Image: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team 
Watch the video: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2024/12/See_and_hear_three_years_of_solar_fireworks  

Hear three years of solar fireworks

Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko - O Ignis Spiritus

From "Dubio", releasing on march 24th: https://kettel.bandcamp.com/album/dubio

Arpa Ingrata

Brief excerpt from a recording actually made during dawn on Friday 2nd May 2025, because the weather was perfect, and because I could get out there; whereas the forecast for Sunday 4th May wasn't as good, and I couldn't get out there that day. Raw recording. Just a friendly postcard from the other pole, where it's not spring, but on the way to winter. (They say 'Down Under': but, of course, there is no 'up' or 'down' in Space.)

2025.05.02 For the Northern Hemisphere's 'Dawn Chorus Day', from the Southern Hemisphere.

Meteosat Third Generation Sounder-1 (MTG-S1) is the second satellite launch in the MTG constellation and is equipped with the Infrared Sounder instrument. It also carries the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission, which monitors air quality with its ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light (UVN) spectrometer.


James Champion, ESA’s MTG Project Manager

Why do we need the MTG Sounder?

Launched in May 2024, ESA’s Earth Explorer EarthCARE mission has already been delivering remarkable data. Its four instruments have brought us groundbreaking insights into clouds, aerosols and Earth’s energy balance. The mission is being featured in an immersive installation called Hakuryu, which is Japanese for White Dragon, at the Living Planet Symposium in Vienna and here’s the accompanying sonification of atmospheric data downloaded from the EarthCARE satellite.

EarthCARE data transformed into a dragon’s song for peace

The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire

Jessica Moss • until all are free

This is the first single from Yara Asmar's new album. This track features John Murchison and Gideon Forbes.

3 wooden giants and mechanical birds

Official SoundCloud channel of ESA - the European Space Agency. Most (not all) audio content here is licensed under CC BY-SA IGO 3.0. Please check individual credits to be certain. Can't find a track? Our channel used to be http://www.soundcloud.com/esaops - but not anymore. Try searching here for the track name or using keywords instead.