Have you ever wonder what ice may voice like drop down a rich icy well ? Now , you do n’t have to because scientists have just revealed it , and whatever you were expecting , this probably was n’t it .
A empty ominous ringing ? A final deep clump ? Nope , it sounds like a optical maser gunfight , or a cartoon . meth apparently accrue down a kettle of fish to the sound of “ church bench church bench ! ”
The video of the glob of ice being swing down a drill hole to the auditory sensation of laser - like pings endure viral after geochemistJohn Higginsshared the cartridge clip on Twitter . But there is a ripe reason for the strange sound , and an excellent reason why scientist are in the Antarctic boring hole hundreds of metrical foot deep .
Higgins , an associate prof of geosciences at Princeton , and workfellow were in Antarctica drilling for ice cores that can be thousands , and even millions , of years one-time . These ancient sample can cater a wealth of information , from ancient mood to atmospherical condition . In this case , they were look for gas bubbles trap in the ice cores , which incorporate pristine samples of carbon dioxide , methane , and other natural gas that provide a " snapshot " of conditions back then .
Last yr , Higgins was part of a team that discover the oldest gas bubble after extracting2 - million - yr - old ice nub . late they have been back in the Allan Hills , a part at the end of the Transantarctic Mountains famous for its “ blue ice ” area and the find of lunar andMartian meteorite , to take more samples .
Higgins reference Dr Peter Neff , a post - doc investigator at the University of Washington , for the musical theme of spend the crank down the borehole . Neff shared a similar videoof him and his colleagues doing the same affair in 2018 that had over 10 million views .
As Neff explains in a TV he shared online after Higgin ’s video went viral , they were also in Antarctica take away ice effect samples to canvas ancient air and how the atmosphere “ pick itself ” . learn bubble trammel in ice core is like search attree rings , we can establish record of what the climate was like in the past , he says .
However , “ Once you ’ve got all these bore holes that you ’re done with , you ’ve done all the scientific discipline , ” he said . “ The legitimate human thing to do is to throw some deoxyephedrine down a bass maw to see what it sound like . "
So , why does it make that classifiable " pew pew " ( just saying the words you may hear it ) sound ?
Even Laura Dern ca n’t not say it .
The distorted auditory sensation as the ice fall is to do with the phenomenon known as the Doppler Effect . This is the change in oftenness and wavelength of a moving ridge due to the alteration in distance of the root of the wave and the thing observe it . An well-off object lesson is the change in pitching when an hand brake fomite with a siren drives past . The soundwaves are compressed as they get nigher and stretch out when they get further off , bring down the frequency and pitch .
" When the ice shoot the bottom of the borehole , the sound does n’t only come straight up – the sound waving start to bounce off the sides of the hole . That ’s why you hear thisplink!with sort of a heartbeat sound afterwards , ” Neff said .
So , that ’s the science , now you may go back to just play it for the pew pew audio on repetition . AsNeff enunciate , it never get old .
