MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Contact: Guy Webster, (818) 354-6278

NASA's Cassini spacecraft, approaching Jupiter, is detecting waves in the thin gas of charged particles that fills the space between the Sun and its planets. The waves are in low radio frequencies, which have been converted to sound waves to make the patterns audible.

A brief audio clip is available at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/acoustic

The audio clip comes from waves that were detected by Cassini on Dec. 8, at a distance of about 23 million kilometers (14 million miles) from Jupiter. They are likely to have derived from an interaction of the magnetic field that surrounds Jupiter and the solar wind of particles speeding away from the Sun, said Cassini science team member Dr. William Kurth of the University of Iowa, Iowa City.

Cassini, a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, will pass Jupiter on Dec. 30 for a gravity boost to reach its ultimate destination, Saturn. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages Cassini for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.