How do vibrations travel through the vacuum of outer space?

Space isn't a vacuum, as far as sound waves are concerned! Sound waves can travel through space the same way they do in earth's atmosphere: pressure waves. When we look around, we see plenty of sound waves in low density, interstellar gas [1]. read more

Space isn't a vacuum, as far as sound waves are concerned! Sound waves can travel through space the same way they do in earth's atmosphere: pressure waves. When we look around, we see plenty of sound waves in low density, interstellar gas [1]. read more

It's a fact well-known enough to be the tagline to the 1979 sci-fi horror blockbuster Alien:"In space, no one can hear you scream." Or to put it another way, sound can't be carried in the empty vacuum of space - there just aren't any molecules for the audio vibrations to move through. read more

For sound to travel there has to be something with molecules for it to travel through. In space, the ‘sounds’ that are recorded are the electromagnetic vibrations that naturally occur in the vacuum of space. read more

Or to put it another way, sound can't be carried in the empty vacuum of space - there just aren't any molecules for the audio vibrations to move through. Well, that is true: but only up to a point. As it turns out, space isn't a complete and empty void, though large swathes of it are. read more

In space, the ‘sounds’ that are recorded are the electromagnetic vibrations that naturally occur in the vacuum of space. Various space probes have recorded the interactions between the Solar Wind in our Solar System and our own planet, as well as Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. read more