The words sonic boom are used to express the sound created when an object exceeds the speed of sound in its motion. The speed of sound, if calculated at room temperature and an altitude of sea level is just a little more than twelve hundred kilometers an hour and is referred to as Mach 1 speed. Upon reaching the speed of sound an aircraft compresses the sound waves which it emits to such an extent that a sonic boom is heard which is similar to the sound an explosion would make.
As is with most other waves, sound waves require a medium to travel through – or to travel on the back of. If you were to take a stereo into space it wouldn’t make any sound because there is no medium in space which can be disturbed to propagate sound wave. Thus space is considered a vacuum in which there exist very few particles per meter. A sound wave is carried through a disturbance in the air which causes vibrations, these vibrations enter our ears and make impact with our ear drums, the rhythm, frequency and wavelength of the sound wave is then deciphered by our brains as different notes and tones.
A sonic boom is created when a spacecraft, aircraft or any moving body with a mass travels so fast that it compresses and inevitably overtakes the sound waves that it is letting out. The sonic boom can be seen by the naked eye as a kind of vortex or portal type shape through which the aircraft moves.
Jet Sonic Boom
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