The Photoacoustic Effect

[SparWeb]

I'm having trouble believing this.

Apparently, the sound that some people report hearing when they see a meteor flash overhead is not necessarily in their imagination.
The authors of this paper have extracted from the principles of the photoacoustic effect (studied in experiments by Alexander G. Bell in the late 1800's) and done their own models and tests to show that the effect of light flashing from a bright fireball can generate a noise that the observer will hear immediately. It is normally agreed that the sound of impact, ablation, and vaporization is too far away to be heard by the observer of a meteorite. And if possible, there would be a substantial time delay. I myself have seen some very bright fireballs and waited for a possible noise, only to hear nothing. The authors of this paper propose a new source of the noise that the observers can hear immediately as they see the flash. Due to the photoacoustic effect, the observers can hear a noise from a bright meteor generated by their own hair. Let me repeat that... from their hair. And their clothes.

It's published by Nature magazine. I've always considered Nature to be fairly reputable. Well, I think it's reputable...

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep41251
https://www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/purl/1345579

Just circling back to my own observations for a moment. As I said, I have seen some bright fireballs. Two bright enough to be worth reporting, and one of them was surprisingly photographed in Idaho! (I'm in Calgary, so that should give you an idea how bright it was). I did not hear a sound. It was a very quiet night. I do have hair. Not much, mind you... ...and I was wearing clothes at the time... ...so why couldn't I hear the photoacoustic sound?

I'm still very puzzled by this article.

[notFritzArgelander]

The article seems very well reasoned to me. Whether or not one would hear a sound from a meteor would depend on the detailed physical properties of the hair and clothing of the observer. Some materials would be more efficient as photoacoustic transducers than others.