Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Chirping chorus rings out from an unexpected part of outer space

Bursts of electromagnetic radiation that share similarities with birdsong have long been observed close to Earth. A detection farther out in space confirms a key part of the theory of their origin, but also poses questions.
  1. Richard B. Horne

    1. Richard B. Horne is in the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Many readers will be familiar with the dawn chorus, the birdsong that can be heard at the break of day, especially in spring. But this performance lends its name to another type of chorus — one of intense electromagnetic bursts — chiefly because, when these waves are converted into audio signals, they sound similar to birds chirping. These ‘chorus waves’ have been observed by radio receivers at the Halley Research Station in Antarctica since the late 1960s. They originate in space, high above a planet’s equator, and they loosely follow the path of its magnetic field. Earth, Jupiter and Saturn are all known to host chorus waves, but now, in a paper in Nature, Liu et al.1 report the discovery of chorus waves in an unlikely location, some 160,000 kilometres away from Earth.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 637, 798-799 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-04211-6

References

  1. Liu, C. M. et al. Nature 637, 813–820 (2025).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Burtis, W. J. & Helliwell, R. A. J. Geophys. Res. 74, 3002–3010 (1969).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Omura, Y. & Summers, D. J. Geophys. Res. 111, A09222 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Omura, Y. & Nunn, D. J. Geophys. Res. 116, A05205 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Horne, R. B. et al. J. Geophys. Res. 110, A03225 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Horne, R. B. et al. Space Weather 19, e2021SW002823 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy