Venus is silent: I played lightning on five worlds by one rule, and the receiver that hears Earth crackle hears nothing at Venus

Through one receiver and one rule, Earth's signal stands 460 times over Venus's and 333 times over Saturn's. Lightning has been reported on five bodies, and I sound all five by one rule. Three are heard through one instrument: Cassini's high-frequency receiver, which picks up lightning as brief bursts of shortwave radio. Passing Earth in 1999 it heard Earth's lightning and human shortwave stations; passing Venus the same year it heard none (Gurnett et al. 2001); orbiting Saturn in 2004 it recorded Saturn's lightning (Fischer et al. 2006). I map 1.2 to 16 MHz onto 1.5 to 20 kHz, the top of human hearing, and play the hours 240 times faster. Earth's strongest signal, 4.0 × 10⁻⁶ V/m/√Hz, stands 460 times over Venus's 8.7 × 10⁻⁹ and 333 times over Saturn's 1.2 × 10⁻⁸. Uranus's lightning is taken from Voyager 2's radio receiver, where it was found (Zarka and Pedersen 1986); Jupiter's from the Voyager 1 whistlers that first revealed lightning on another planet (Gurnett et al. 1979). I found no earlier audio of Uranus's lightning and no audio pairing of Earth and Venus through one receiver. This record holds the paper (OCO paper IP-A26) and its 5 sounds. Headphones. Part of The sound of the sky: 12 papers and their sounds: 10.5281/zenodo.23986764.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-11-05
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23986781
Primary Topic
Lightning and Electromagnetic Phenomena
Type
preprint
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preprint

Venus is silent: I played lightning on five worlds by one rule, and the receiver that hears Earth crackle hears nothing at Venus

Ivan Petrov Ivanov
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Lightning and Electromagnetic Phenomena
preprint

Venus is silent: I played lightning on five worlds by one rule, and the receiver that hears Earth crackle hears nothing at Venus

Ivan Petrov Ivanov
preprint en

Abstract

Through one receiver and one rule, Earth's signal stands 460 times over Venus's and 333 times over Saturn's. Lightning has been reported on five bodies, and I sound all five by one rule. Three are heard through one instrument: Cassini's high-frequency receiver, which picks up lightning as brief bursts of shortwave radio. Passing Earth in 1999 it heard Earth's lightning and human shortwave stations; passing Venus the same year it heard none (Gurnett et al. 2001); orbiting Saturn in 2004 it recorded Saturn's lightning (Fischer et al. 2006). I map 1.2 to 16 MHz onto 1.5 to 20 kHz, the top of human hearing, and play the hours 240 times faster. Earth's strongest signal, 4.0 × 10⁻⁶ V/m/√Hz, stands 460 times over Venus's 8.7 × 10⁻⁹ and 333 times over Saturn's 1.2 × 10⁻⁸. Uranus's lightning is taken from Voyager 2's radio receiver, where it was found (Zarka and Pedersen 1986); Jupiter's from the Voyager 1 whistlers that first revealed lightning on another planet (Gurnett et al. 1979). I found no earlier audio of Uranus's lightning and no audio pairing of Earth and Venus through one receiver. This record holds the paper (OCO paper IP-A26) and its 5 sounds. Headphones. Part of The sound of the sky: 12 papers and their sounds: 10.5281/zenodo.23986764.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Lightning and Electromagnetic Phenomena
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