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Meteors may emit radio waves as they burn up in the atmosphere. The radio waves could be converted to sound by vibrating objects near the ground, explaining why some observers "hear" meteors in real time despite the discrepancy between the speeds of light and sound:
For centuries, some observers have claimed that shooting stars or meteors hiss as they arc through the night sky. And for just as long, skeptics have scoffed on the grounds that sound waves coming from meteors should arrive several minutes after the light waves, which travel nearly a million times faster. Now, scientists have proposed a theory to explain how our eyes and ears could perceive a meteor at nearly the same time. The hypothesis might also explain how auroras produce sound, a claim made by many indigenous peoples living at high latitudes.
Meteors release huge amounts of energy as they disintegrate in the atmosphere. They also produce low frequency radio waves that travel at the speed of light. Some scientists have suggested that those radio waves produce the sound that accompanies meteors. The waves can cause everyday objects—including fences, hair, and glasses—to vibrate, which our ears pick up as sound between 20 and 20,000 Hertz. This phenomenon, called electrophonics, is a well-known principle: "The conversion from electromagnetic waves to sound waves ... is exactly how your radio works," says Colin Price, an atmospheric scientist at Tel Aviv University in Israel and co-author of the new study. "But in this case nature provides the conversion between electromagnetic waves and acoustic waves."
On the electrophonic generation of audio frequency sound by meteors (DOI: 10.1002/2017GL072911) (DX)
Photoacoustic Sounds from Meteors (open, DOI: 10.1038/srep41251) (DX)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 19 2017, @02:12AM (1 child)
If indigenous peoples living at high latitudes can hear meteors then it can be assumed that it's not modern objects that cause this phenomena?
The article mentions fences which I doubt applies to indigenous people, hair just seem to sloppy and not receptive, and glasses is rare among indigenous people I'll assume. So what objects are there in nature that would convert electromagnetic radiation into sound? It ought to be something that conduct so my suspicion is rocks with metal content that have the right shape to vibrate freely. Any other?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 19 2017, @03:38PM
Something to consider is the peak ZHR for the Perseids in 2016 was about three times normal, but not shocking, around 220/hr. So thats around 1 every 20 seconds and its completely believable that if a large one made it down to lower atmosphere and made sonic boomy wooshy noises there's a quite measurable statistical odds that if you looked up you'd see a meteor, while hearing a meteor, yet they're different meteors.
Also something non-scientific people miss is most meteor "fun" happens quite a bit higher than clouds, so during huge meteor showers people should be hearing weird stuff from the sky even when its cloudy. I suppose if its rainy people would misidentify as thunder.