Sounds on distant worlds

Imagining a visit to another planet just got a little easier, with the first data-based simulations of extraterrestrial sounds. Space probes have never captured actual sounds on other worlds, but a team led by Tim Leighton of the University of Southampton in England has simulated such noises by calculating how sound would travel through various planetary atmospheres. For example, human vocal cords would vibrate more slowly in the dense atmosphere on Venus, but sound waves would travel faster, making the speaker seem smaller.