# How loud is the sun? [duplicate]

The sun is a continuous explosion. The reason we cannot hear the sun is because of the vacuum separating us.

If that space was to be filled with air, would the sun be audible?

• techly.com.au/2015/04/30/… – user198207 Jun 27 '18 at 10:02
• Continuous explosion? – Kyle Kanos Jun 27 '18 at 11:00
• A constant exothermic reaction with shards of matter flying around all over the place? Explosion seems like a fitting word – Ben Crossley Jun 27 '18 at 11:07
• – Kyle Kanos Jun 27 '18 at 11:19
• "Continuous explosion" is a self-contradictory phrase. A thing is said to "explode" when it suddenly flies apart into many (possibly, uncountably many) pieces. No phenomenon can be both "continuous" and "sudden." And a thing that flies apart can't do so continuously. – Solomon Slow Jun 27 '18 at 13:41

Kolmogorov predicted the distribution of kinetic energy with respect to spatial frequency $(k\sim {{L}^{-1}})$ via glorified dimensional analysis, starting with the driving power per unit mass $(W\sim {{L}^{2}}{{T}^{-3}})$, which is applied at long length scales but ultimately dissipated by viscosity at short length scales. The total kinetic energy per unit mass $({{L}^{2}}{{T}^{-2}})$ distributes as ${{W}^{2/3}}\int{dk\ {{k}^{-5/3}}}$, with an unknown coefficient and long and short length cutoffs set by the radius of the system and viscosity, respectively. The persistence time of an eddy with length scale $1/k$ should scale as ${{k}^{-2/3}}{{W}^{-1/3}}$. Only large-scale eddies have high velocities, but even they don’t get close to the speed of sound.