The Music of Space: Could Space Dust Transmit Sound?

[blade_chong]

if space contains space dust, wouldn't the space dust be a medium for sound to travel?

 

[PRyckman]

Sound is vibrations traveling through air as pressure differences. Think of it as a high and low pressure wave following each other rapidly.

Since space dust would not be able to have high pressure and low pressure, it couldn't be a medium for sound as we know it to travel.

Imagine a lot of dust on a speaker in space, the very first out push of the speaker drum would send all of the dust off of it, making it impossible to send out any more dust. Also the dust that began traveling would scatter as it hit dust in its path, making complete chaos of the original pulse that started.

 

[DaveC426913]

Sound can actually transmit through any medium, not just air.

I think a more direct explanation is that, in order for sound to travel through the medium, the medium must be dense enough for the particles to transmit a signal, let alone a coherent one.

The dust particles in a vacuum simply don't bang into each other in any fashion that supports any kind of propogated wave.

 

[FredGarvin]

It's not that the medium needs to be dense enough. It must be continuous.

 

[DaveC426913]

It's not that the medium needs to be dense enough. It must be continuous.

For practical purposes, that's the same thing.