04-06-2014, 12:55 AM
from news 6/3/14:
"(CNN) -- Australian researchers plan to release an audio recording Wednesday of an underwater sound that they say could possibly be related to the final moments of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It's a long shot, but researchers at Curtin University near Perth, Australia, have been studying records from underwater listening devices, including those meant to monitor for signs of underwater nuclear explosions, in an effort to help find the missing plane. "One signal has been detected on several receivers that could be related to the crash," said Alec Duncan with the university's Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST). Researchers have been analyzing the very low frequency sound for weeks to see if it was "the impact of the aircraft on the water or the implosion of parts of the aircraft as it sank," Duncan said. "But (the source of the noise) is just as likely to be a natural event."
Low frequency signals can travel thousands of kilometers through water under favorable circumstances, at about 1.5 kilometers per second, Duncan said. But "at the moment (the sound) appears to be inconsistent with other data about the aircraft position," he said.
That's because researchers at Curtin University believe the sound came from an area thousands of kilometers to the northwest of the current search area in the southern Indian Ocean. And even then, they haven't been able to pinpoint the source. Duncan says his team has calculated an "uncertainty box" for the signal's origin. It's area that stretches some 4,000 kilometers in length from southeast to northwest, and spans some 200 to 300 kilometers in width. And he says the center is south of the tip of India. The university plans to release more data about the sound on Wednesday, including an audio clip captured by one of the listening devices, off of Perth. Duncan says his team has sped up the recording 10 times to make it audible to the human ear."
link:http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/asia...?hpt=hp_t2
Be interesting to see if the "range of uncertainty" covers the area found by that mining company ship. Seems unlikely that a plane striking the ocean at a low enough speed not to break apart the plane into lots of floating debris wouldn't make a lot of noise, but "crush" noises are routinely picked up on sonar.
"(CNN) -- Australian researchers plan to release an audio recording Wednesday of an underwater sound that they say could possibly be related to the final moments of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It's a long shot, but researchers at Curtin University near Perth, Australia, have been studying records from underwater listening devices, including those meant to monitor for signs of underwater nuclear explosions, in an effort to help find the missing plane. "One signal has been detected on several receivers that could be related to the crash," said Alec Duncan with the university's Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST). Researchers have been analyzing the very low frequency sound for weeks to see if it was "the impact of the aircraft on the water or the implosion of parts of the aircraft as it sank," Duncan said. "But (the source of the noise) is just as likely to be a natural event."
Low frequency signals can travel thousands of kilometers through water under favorable circumstances, at about 1.5 kilometers per second, Duncan said. But "at the moment (the sound) appears to be inconsistent with other data about the aircraft position," he said.
That's because researchers at Curtin University believe the sound came from an area thousands of kilometers to the northwest of the current search area in the southern Indian Ocean. And even then, they haven't been able to pinpoint the source. Duncan says his team has calculated an "uncertainty box" for the signal's origin. It's area that stretches some 4,000 kilometers in length from southeast to northwest, and spans some 200 to 300 kilometers in width. And he says the center is south of the tip of India. The university plans to release more data about the sound on Wednesday, including an audio clip captured by one of the listening devices, off of Perth. Duncan says his team has sped up the recording 10 times to make it audible to the human ear."
link:http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/world/asia...?hpt=hp_t2
Be interesting to see if the "range of uncertainty" covers the area found by that mining company ship. Seems unlikely that a plane striking the ocean at a low enough speed not to break apart the plane into lots of floating debris wouldn't make a lot of noise, but "crush" noises are routinely picked up on sonar.