Copenhagen, Denmark

Earth's magnetic field flipped tens of thousands of years ago and now we know what that might have sounded like. It was only for a short time but has fascinated researchers. Known as the Laschamp event, it resulted in Earth's magnetic field flipping 41,000 years ago. 

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Danish and German researchers used data from the European Space Agency's three-satellite Swarm mission to dive deep into our planet's magnetic field. The research has helped them map and recreate the sounds of the Laschamp event.

The evidence of this flip was first discovered in the 1960s at the Laschamps lava flows in France and so was named after it. During this event, our planet's magnetic field weakened to just five per cent of its normal strength.

As this happened, a bunch of cosmic rays went past the atmosphere. Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Center for Geosciences show in their recreation that it made a terrible sound.

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The Scandinavian researchers used field recordings of several things, like wood creaking and rocks falling and mixed them up to create the eerie sounds of the planet's magnetic field twisting away.

Listen to the alien sounds 

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This is the first time that we have heard the sounds of the magnetic field flipping. However, scientists have created a soundtrack of the magnetic field earlier as well, using the data of the Swarm mission.

In October 2022, the ESA and the Tech University of Denmark released an audio depicting what our modern magnetic field sounds like. That was also equally chilling.

Like the current recreation, researchers used regular sounds to show what the Earth's magnetic field sounded like during solar storms.

"The rumbling of Earth’s magnetic field is accompanied by a representation of a geomagnetic storm that resulted from a solar flare on 3 November 2011," TUD musician project supporter Klaus Nielsen said in a 2022 statement. "Indeed it sounds pretty scary."

They gave people a scare on Halloween by playing the sound on 32 underground speakers in Copenhagen's Solbjerg Square.