A Taste of Armageddon's Sonic Disruptor and Our Sun
Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 8:39 am
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -corona-th
Although these high coronal temperatures came as a surprise to early observers, it did not take long for theoretical explanations to surface. They fall into three main categories: In the first, the photosphere can be likened to the bubbling surface of boiling water; it is a seething mass of rising and falling columns of hot fluid. And just as the roiling water makes noise, so does the convective overturning of the solar surface fill its atmosphere with intense sound waves. Thus, if you could stand on the solar surface, not only would it be very hot but it would also be incredibly loud. At least some of this sound makes its way upward into the corona, where dissipative processes covert the audio energy into heat. Because the coronal material is so thin and tenuous, only a tiny portion of all the sound energy in the photosphere needs to bleed up into the corona and be absorbed in order to heat it to the observed temperatures.
I was just watching a documentary about the Day Star when they mentioned that the Corona might be heated with sonic energy. It might explain the absurdly high output of the weapon, and make it seem more realistic?SCOTT: Well, now. They're taking pot shots at us. Holding, Mister DePaul?
DEPAUL: Screens firm, sir. Extremely powerful sonic vibrations. Decibels eighteen to the twelfth power. If those screens weren't up, we'd be totally disrupted by now.
MCCOY: Well, I guess that answers our questions, Mister Scott. They're not very friendly, are they?