Sounds of an Asteroid Impact

In 2009 China Blue & Dr. Seth Horowitz, a Brown University neuroscientist, recorded NASA’s Ames Vertical Gun both inside and outside the chamber with customized seismic, boundary (PZM) and ultrasonic microphones to capture the sonic footprint of a hypervelocity impact. The seismic microphones were placed both on the surrounding platform and against the central target. The boundary microphones were placed on the platform at 180 deg. from each other and the ultrasonic microphone was placed at the top of the chamber creating an array that would capture the full acoustic emission from multiple locations. The microphones were monitored live on separate channels and the recordings captured with state of the art computer software. Simultaneous binaural recordings on standard microphones were made to capture the ambient acoustics external to the chamber.