Here's what an underwater volcanic eruption sounds like | Listen

It has been a year since the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted, causing widespread destruction in Tonga and spewing volcanic material up to 58 km into the atmosphere.

Ever wondered what an underwater volcanic eruption sounds like?

Scientists have now created a sonification of the January 2022 Hunga eruption - the largest eruption of the 21st Century - using wind data from the European Space Agency's Aeolus mission. The Aeolus Virtual Research Environment provided near-realtime data which enabled scientists working on the Aeolus Data Science Innovation Cluster to track the volcanic eruption.

Using wind data obtained on one of its overpasses over the ash cloud of the Hunga Tonga explosion, sound artist Jamie Perera took a sound sample of one of the shock waves from the Hunga Tonga explosion, stretched it out to create a haunting tone, and then assigned it to harmonic values transcribed from 90 Aeolus readings taken over a period of 15 minutes.

Listen to the sonification of the eruption:

European Space Agency · Sound of the Hunga Tonga Volcanic Eruption/ Credit: ESA/ Jamie Perera

In the above track shared by ESA, the listener is presented with a harmonic range of six piano octaves, with one reading playing every two seconds. At around 01:18 minutes, the readings reach their highest peak, showing the dust plume of the eruption reaching over 20.5 km. The sonification was created to evoke the mysterious atmosphere of Hunga Tonga and other volcanoes.

"One of the most impressive aspects of the Aeolus mission is how quickly the data is with scientists – almost all of it in less than three hours. The data is displayed on a beautiful and user-friendly interface virtual research environment, called ViRES, from which we can easily detect trends," ESA’s Tommaso Parrinello said in an interview with Wild Alchemy.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption caused widespread destruction, spewing volcanic material up to 58 km 🌋 A year on, you can now hear a sonification of the largest eruption of the 21st Century, created using wind data from @esa’s #Aeolus mission.🎧👉https://t.co/9emImSQkdZ pic.twitter.com/Cl4drfk4Cc

— esa aeolus mission (@esa_aeolus) January 16, 2023