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Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
LOWρUFO 
@lowrhoufo.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
preternia @preterniadotcom.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 2d
Tea Berry-Blue @teaberryblue.net ⋅ 2d
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this is the sound of the sun she’s talking about BTW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I-zdmg_Dno
is the sound of nuclear fusion turning 600 million tonnes of hydrogen into 596 million tonnes of helium every second
…you know, I could swear I’ve heard this exact sound in a 1960s Dr. Who episode.
I read your comment as tongue in cheek, but listening to it…yeah, total Dalek city vibes.
That has to be one of the most zoned out sounds I’ve heard. I was immediately put into a zoinked out state. Weird/
BTW this sound IRL is MUCH longer than 3 minutes, specifically the sound you’re hearing in the vid is sped up by a factor of 42,000 to make it audible to human ears
if it sounds familiar, you probably remember playing with a plasma sphere as a kid, no? it’s exactly that, it’s the sound of plasma flowing around in the sun’s atmosphere, i.e. solar weather
a microwave sounds similar on account of an oscillating magnetic field causing metal components inside the microwave to vibrate, is literally what’s happening inside the sun as the shifting plasma winds inside the sun generate a very powerful oscillating magnetic field
thus if you can’t hear it, it’s because bipedal primates haven’t evolved to hear frequencies lower than 20 hz, big whoop XD
the sound is that of a big “microwave” oven making helium for birthday balloons in it’s core
like no other factory in our solar system, our sun uses gravity to mix hydrogen atoms by waterfalls, churning and mixing trillions of tonnes of plasma an hour via nuclear reaction, also producing energy mostly in the form of gamma rays and X-rays at the core, continuously absorbed and re-emitted by atoms throughout the sun’s layers for centuries before making it to the surface and being spat out into space in the form of mostly visible light
but a very tiny fraction of the emitted radiation is the UV light which activates photosynthesis and fuels just about all life on earth
the energy of being a living organism, of doing things, of thinking, of all of your existence, and that of all that walks, all that runs, of all that swims, of all that crawls, of all that flies, of all that thinks, of all that plays, of all that fucks
I mean, you also can’t here it because there’s 93 million miles of vacuum between here and there, and vacuum is quite noted for its inability to propagate sound. There’s a movie tagline about it and everything!
*can’t [i]hear[/i] it. I shouldn’t be typing this late.
I mean we can literally hear it on earth despite that distance thanks to the work of scientists who turned raw doppler imager data from artificial satellites orbiting the sun into the video sound above
is basically the audio recording equivalent of long-exposure photography
heck even without these satelites, the sun’s atmospheric activity can very much be heard on earth in the form of radio interference caused by coronal mass ejections and solar flares
This comment thread is beautiful. We’re just a bunch of great apes using a massive global infrastructure of communications technology to look at art and talk about stars. Humans are so awesome lol
of course
hardly a coincidence the internet itself was literally invented by physicists :)
…I’m late, but… photosynthesis uses red and blue, not UV.
ah yes, not always easy to keep track of which wavelength’s do what in earth’s carbon based life
except of course gamma and X-rays, their effects on living cells are pretty hard not to overstate XD
So that is what I keep hearing…then what’s making the laughing sound?
Solar turbulence when speeded up sometimes sounds like a baby laughing, making the opening credits of Teletubbies a physics lesson for toddlers.
so… this?
I was thinking more like this:
https://youtu.be/wWoQ7PFSYlk?si=HhWYJvpa5PNP5N98
Leslie: I just want to make it clear I am not a substitute for your mother.
Charlie: Of course not. My mother is 10 billion cosmic bees. They sang in harmony at the time of the great conjunction, and so it came to pass that I had always been.
Leslie: …And Booster?
Charlie: Oh, they were just a C-section.
Aren’t they twins? …this is a stupid question and I’m too tired to Google it, but are there twins where one was born vaginally and the other through C-section?
I like the implication that that’s the only part of this explanation that doesn’t make sense.
Well yes everything else was perfectly logical and natural, the c section is what seems weird
As an unrelated side note, there was apparently a point in history where C-section births didn’t used to meet the colloquial (and possibly the then-official? I dunno) definition of “birth.” It’s the reason why Duncan was able to kill the eponymous Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, given the “no man of woman born” could kill Macbeth. The implication was supposed to be that Duncan came into the world by C-section, and thus wasn’t technically “born” by the cultural understanding of the time.
As a C-section child, this greatly amuses me, and so I sometimes like to privately joke to myself that I was never actually born and that my “birthday” was a sham. A conspiracy, I tell you!
Clearly we just need to carve out a day to celebrate you properly.
I like the implication that the first part describes “being born”.
I’m not an expert but I’m p sure I’ve read about situations where one twin is a premie and one isn’t so theoretically, perhaps?
It’s not super common but yeah, if something goes wrong with birthing the second twin it might need to get swapped to an emergency C-section after the first has already been born.
Yes indeed. Problems can arise when birthing twins. Cord around neck; breech position. Bad stuff: time to get ’em out the hard way.
wonder how the other students are reacting to her blatant favoritism but i imagine they don’t rly care lol
That’s the great thing about space not carrying sound: the universe would be so flippin loud
It carries light, and it’s still pretty dark.
The Sun is very far away and sound doesn’t carry as well as light, so it might not be too bad?
Well, actually…
There is free gas floating around between the stars, and there are interactions between them, so there is “sound” in space. Between the stars in our galaxy the speed of sound is around 100 km/s.
There is even a star cluster that is reverberating to a single sound wave, B-flat, 57 octaves below middle C.
flingin’ flangin’ no editing:
https://www.system-sounds.com/black-hole-sound/
OK, when I heard that I just couldn’t help imagining a chorus of monks intoning it, and spooked the crap out of myself.
And more nearby. Cf. “solar wind”. There’s enough of it blowing past to deform our planet’s magnetosphere!
Kinda wonder if stuff like gravitational waves count as sound.
Yes. Not sounds we can hear but it’s all vibrations in the medium anyway. But if it were many orders of magnitude stronger, we could hear it. (and that would be bad)
In the strictest sense, they aren’t. Sound is pressure waves specifically, like you wouldn’t call a ripple a sound. The equations for sound wave propagation are also of a completely different character to those for gravitational wave propagation, so a gravitational wave doesn’t necessarily have any of the properties of sound, such as the ability to bounce off solid objects, being ‘louder’ the closer you are to the source, doppler shifting, etc.
Now with LIGO, et al, we can hear more noise! Yay! for gravitational waves!
Leslie, you need to stop putting hands on your students.
Especially autistic ones.
second this
like don’t touch anyone like that without consent really, autistic or not
The only time a teacher should be touching their students if they’re strangling them.
i mean ngl, that’s pretty justified in Mary’s case XD
Leslie, have you ever considered thinking before you do things? Because it rather feels like you haven’t.
We have seen her thinking about doing stuff with people. It’s not any better for her decision-making process.
Would overthinking count? I think she could do overthinking.
I think you might be overthinking her overthinking.
But I think I might be overthinking you overthinking her overthinking.
But if you are overthinking their overthinking over her overthinking, then who is piloting the plane?!
It can’t be; Who is on first.
And what’s in the copilot seat.
IDon’tKnow.
I don’t give a dam.
He’s the catcher.
they go dam good with rye bread :9
Well that’s it, I’m over thinking.
Here. Have a spare Internet.
Huh. You might have a point. I’ll have to think it over.
I understand Charlie perfectly. It’s very distracting.
Leslie: I will be there for you, always, Mar…oh crap.
Mary: BWahahahhahahaha.
Hm, is Mary in this class? Or is she spending all of her spare time figuring out how to graduate without taking Gender Studies or anything like it?
Easily done; GS and such classes are almost always electives. Not required for any degree or minor. Might be required for a certificate or two.
She blogs about how its teaching woke nonsense.
The Sun’s a big place, it’s probably making a lot of sounds.
But are things quieter at night?
*twitch*
Need to explain rising.
Quick! Close the tab!
I don’t think there are nights on the sun
Nights on the sun are darker, sure. Quieter, no (all those mass ejections).
Dear Dina, why did you take back the hat you gave Charlie?! At the very least, you should’ve gotten her a replacement first! (But this time, go get the hat yourself, instead of traveling with Charlie; not sure the universe could survive that)
Charlie said she wanted a different hat.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/tighter/
That was the start of their epic adventure, Hat Quest!
The hat she ended up with after that quest was the same hat she started with… which Dina almost immediately snatched away… so yeah, Charlie still needs a hat.
Or screaming, or weeping. You know attributing any emotion to the sun is a terrifying prospect.
I like to think it has a sunny disposition.
Life can be delish with a sunny disposish
Maybe don’t read Out of the Silent Planet then.
Or, do. It’s weird.
Or, I think it was Games Wizards Play, wherein Our Heroes meet the various local planets at a party.
The sound the sun makes is “Lowenstein… Lowenstein…”
Her name is Zweig
Okay Charlie was round 2, I guess next round would be a male student?
Sure, line up for odd shoulder-touches from your teacher, all ye men and women.
Did you know there’s rain on the sun? Plasma showers, hotter than the center of the Earth, falling in arcs along magnetic distortions. If you get within the Sun’s atmosphere I wonder if there would be any vibrations quiet enough to qualify as sound or just blastwaves.
I was today old when I realised Leslie’s name is Les
liebean. Lesbian.That’s because, in Shortpacked, she spent months being referred to by Desanto only as “my lesbian.”
As I recall, the pun was the entire joke. And then Willis fleshed her character out.
you folks can’t hear the sun?
The sun definitely laughing at us. And we kind of deserve it mostly
My favorite planet is the sun. It’s like, the King of Planets.
aaaaaaargh
That’s not even a joke. The sun makes a terrifying noise
Whoa! Charlie better check who she’s getting that mother figure/role model relationship from! She’s still fresh blood around here. She ain’t even lost a parent or been kidnapped yet and she’s already moving in on some at risk queer’s territory.
Do we know that Charlie and Booster’s parents are still alive?
There are worse students she could’ve picked for this.
Like Mary.
Fuckin’ Mary.
Mary doesn’t take gender studies.
Pretty sure she would burn if she ever tried
yeah something tells me she’s the kind of conservative who looks up guides for what courses to take to graduate college “without touching liberal bullshit” 9-9
The fuck? That’s a thing?
I genuinely envy this lack of awareness on the topic. I miss it.
unfortunately it’s the case that some degree of this awareness is a necessity in fighting for our causes
if we are to defeat the reactionary enemy, we have to know how they *think*
I still envy it. I can hold two opposing thoughts in my head.
Yes.
it’s just the sun’s constant screaming
nothing to worry about
And all of a sudden I identify with the sun.
Makes sense. It can see us, after all.
Omg I am Charlie
Apt gravitar is apt.
-Solar goon cave noises intensify-
goon??
now that it’s been brought up, I do think it’s a conflict of interest that Leslie is the teacher of a student she was hosting in her house last semester. Maybe Becky’s exam should be graded by someone other than Leslie
With Becky’s wildly politically backed scholarship, she probably doesn’t need this class for the grades. I’m guessing.
Robin would have bigger conflicts of interest with her students but nobody is doing anything about that, so
Last semester
For about a week.
Yeah, definitely not long enough for a conflict of interest. Now, the month spent on wild foursomes between Beckasaur and Dental Damn It , that might be a problem.
I’m glad the sun is far away. Otherwise, I bet it’d sound like a worse version of the shrill sound that electronics make. You know, when they’re plugged in across the room but my autistic brethren and I can still hear them, for some damn reason
If the sun were not far away, its sound would be the least of your problems.
That too, I guess ^_^’
If the sun was much further away, we’d also have big problems.
I like it just where it is.
Oh pshaw. A few seconds of that, and we wouldn’t have ANY problems. Such a great helper, the Sun (when it’s 0.1 AU away).
1 AU, by definition.
Yeah, I know it’s 1 AU now. I meant when it’s at 0.1 AU it’ll be cooking our bacon and then some.
Fortunately modern TVs don’t have 15kHz sweep circuits whistling at me all the time they’re on, and those “ultrasonic” traffic counters have been supplanted by quieter methods.
Similar situation with Robin, love her expression in that strip.
wft panel 1
Robin prefers to be called everyone’s cool older sister.
Still not beating the mom allegations, Leslie.
not necessarily a bad thing, dunno if it happens as often in college but surprised not to hear more students call their teachers ‘mom’ growing up tho i’ve seen that recapped in like an ’embarrassing moments from childhood’ type comics/auto bios but it makes sense b/c depending, your teachers might see more of you than your parents
Clearly Charlie-speak for, ‘Get your hand off of my shoulder if you want to keep it Leslie.’
At the very least she doesn’t look particularly comfortable in that last panel.
No touchy! Nooooo touchy! No touch!
She seems fine.
Seems more like Charlie honestly asking “Are we this familiar? I don’t remember or notice, so be honest.”
She didn’t rly seem that upset, for someone like her i’d expect her to be surprised, but she held dina’s hand pretty easily so i assume she’s not super averse to being touched or so
definitely manic chuckle
I thought it went “TWO SCOOPS”.
Be the mom you want to see in the world.
what if it’s moaning
Probably is. I hear it’s got Coronavirus.
Nah bru that’s the corona, from the Latin word for “crown”,
It’s the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere comprised of charged particles under the influence of the sun’s magnetic fields and extreme temperature even greater than that of the sun’s surface. Much easier to observe in action during a solar eclipse.
Simon and Garfunkel say it’s ruled by a queen named Rosie. But Disney say it’s ruled by Rapunzel’s parents.
I like Charlie, but every time I see her I’m confused at how she functions. She seems to be barely aware of the world around her most of the time.
Either some part of her is actually pretty together when she needs to be but she’s spacy enough that this isn’t obvious even to herself, or things just happen to work out for her, out of pure luck.
I’m pretty sure one of those things is true of me, and one of these days I should probably find out which. Like, apparently I remember to order groceries every week? That seems unlikely, but it keeps happening!
I _can_ be that level of spacy. I try to automate and routinize stuff in my life as much as possible.
The ominousness of the laughter would depend on the sun’s sense of humour, wouldn’t it?
Apparently if there was atmosphere in space we wouldn’t be able to hear our own thoughts because the Sun’s roar would drown everything out.
Like, where does the sun’s atmosphere necessarily begin and end?
Besides it’s gravitational pull, the sun’s incredible magnetic field exerts it’s influence on space gas well beyond even Pluto’s orbit.
Even if it makes no audible sound on earth *directly*, solar flares and coronal mass ejections within the sun’s atmosphere can exert tremendous effect on earth’s navigation and communication systems and even power grids, the potential results of which, as you could imagine, can be very loud XD
Supposedly we already ARE in the Sun’s atmosphere. It’s called the Heliosphere, and it actually extends out past Pluto (it’s REALLY big).
Yup. The Voyager 1 and 2 probes only just recently hit that division. (which is really fuzzy, so they’ve been going through it for some time now)
well of course them “boundary” be fuzzy, like the rest of nature, things in space hardly like to follow neat little lines which are ultimately drawn there by humans for convenience XD
depends how dense the atmosphere is. The thinner the atmosphere, the less noise travels through it. Even the famous Martian dust storms would probably be inaudible to humans.
I think, also, if the atmosphere was as thick as Earth’s atmosphere and fixed relative to the sun, the noise of the earth whooshing through it would probably drown out everything else.
Okay but what would happen if I took two suns and smashed them together as quickly as I can clap my hands? Like, one sun on the left, one on the right, they’re like the distance from our sun to Pluto, and then BAM?
Confirmation of the existence of gravitational waves.
Yeah but like, would it make a cool noise and light show?
Noise, yes.
Light show, definitely yes.
Cool, definitely not. Totally the opposite. We’d be boiled alive about 8-9 minutes after the clap.
Maybe you would. I’d be fine.
If a sun falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it…
Lovecraft wrote lots of stories about the laughing, maniacal Azathoth (aka, our Sun).
Yeah…. Allegations still not beaten, Leslie.
It’s actually muttering under its breath “One of these days, kapow, right in the kisser.”
“One of these days, I’m going to hold my breath, turn red, get really big, and swallow all youse people!”
the knowledge of how absolutely noisy the universe is, but we just can’t hear it is staggering. ~<3
Relatable, Charlie.
Ok, Charlie. You only had to share your thoughts to let me know you were great this whole time and not just an archetype of a diagnosis.
More people should talk to Charlie instead of at Charlie.
Like Carla ironically.
I’ve the sensation that Leslie, deep down, wants to have children.
I LOVE YOU CHARLIE NEVER CHANGE
Leslie and Charlie are going to inexplicably disappear for tomorrow, aren’t they…
it does! : )
Omg Leslie is in this outfit again! Yay! It’s my favorite one of her outfits.
It’s Mr. PoPo’s laughter.