It’s time to check in on our pal Voyager 1, which is traveling at incomprehensible speed outside the heliopause that marks the edge of our solar system.
And what it’s encountering out there is – and sounds – pretty fascinating.
That area is called interstellar space, and it’s between where our sun’s influence ends and the next star’s influence begins.
And while we think of space as, well, space, it’s not quite empty out there.
Interstellar space has stuff in it, sometimes called the interstellar medium.
It can interact with the solar wind even though it’s beyond the heliopause, so we want to learn as much as we can about it.
Voyager has been measuring the density of the plasma, or ionized gas, in interstellar space.
And because the plasma is vibrating, what Voyager is really doing is recording sounds.
So what does interstellar space sound like?
Scientists call it a faint but persistent hum out there beyond the solar system.
Definitely a sound that’s out of this world.
Ice sculptures have been around for a long time, but in Japan, some bartenders take it to the next level.
They use knives to hand-carve ice cubes for drinks, sometimes into very intricate and very perfect looking crystals and geometric shapes.
I’d be too sad to see these melt!
In the emptiness of space, Voyager 1 detects plasma ‘hum’ (Phys.org)
The Satisfying Art of Hand-Sculpting Ice Cubes With a Knife (Oddity Central)