What is a Sonic Boom?

Question

what is it though? i know how you can get one but how is it produced? air resistance? pressure?

Answer 1

The noise created as a result of going faster than the speed of sound.

Breaking the sound barrier.

Answer 2

When an aircraft breaks the sound barrier.

Answer 3

when an aircraft brakes the sound barrier (769mph)or Mach 1

Answer 4

The sound made when an aircraft brakes the sound barrier (769mph)

Answer 5

Its created by the compression of air around (not in front of) the aircraft compared to the ambient air, which gets so great that it forms a wave.

Its caused by any part of an aircraft that increases cross section too quickly, such as at the cockpit or at the wing roots.

Just because something is going supersonic does not mean it makes a sonic boom. Modern aircraft have whats called "supercritical" wings, which are wings where the air on top is supersonic (because of the curve) and the air underneath is not. They do not produce sonic booms because the cross section changes very gradually.

Answer 6

when you fly faster than the speed of sound (mach 1).you will heard the sonic boom.

Answer 7

a sonic boom is the result of what humans hear when the speed of an airplane accellerates above the speed of sound (761.2 miles per hour at sea leve, with standard atmospheric pressure and 15 degrees C, [59 degrees F]), it is caused by pressure waves building up at the nose and tail of an aircraft and when the aircraft accellerates past mach 1 (the speed of sound) those pressure waves release, we see it as a vapor cloud and we hear it as a sonic boom.

Technically, in aviation a sonic boom is a misnomer, because all planes create two pressure waves, one at the tail and one at the nose, and when those pressure waves release, they create two sonic booms, but we hear it as one because the distance between the nose and the tail of planes that can go above the speed of sound are close together.  The only glider/aircraft/spacecraft in the world (that I know of) that creates twin sonic booms when it decelerates below mach 1 is the Space Shuttle, upon re entry to Kennedy Space Centre or Edwards Air Force Base.

Answer 8

It was discovered that the speed of sound is not a barrier.  --That there is no "sound barrier."

And the shock wave and associated boom are not momentary results of accelerating or decelerating through the speed of sound.

Answer 9

Air is a mixture of gases that has limited compressibility.  The "speed of sound" is determined by that compressibility.

What follows is sort of "kitchen science," and the details of the physics and aeronautics involved are really much more complex; but it won't hurt you to think about it this way until you have time to go to the library and look it up.

The speed of sound is considered a "barrier" to increasing the speed of an airplane in flight because it is the point at which an object moving through the air compresses the air in front of it to the extent that the air can no longer "get out of the way" by natural air flow as the airplane approaches.

An airplane must be very powerful and have just the right kind of streamlining to be able to move faster than the speed at which air ceases to be naturally compressible.  An airplane that can move at such speeds will force air out of its way in a different way as its speed rises above the speed of sound.

At this point, a mass of highly-compressed air called a "shock wave" is being pushed in front of the airplane's leading edges.  This shock wave is similar to the cylindrical mass of super compressed air that is produced by a bolt of lightning, and it makes a similar sound as it moves through the atmosphere.

So you hear a "boom" or a "thunderclap" as the shock wave passes by where you are.

It's like thunder only it's produced by a fast moving airplane compressing the air, rather than by a bolt of lightning compressing the air.

Either way, it scares my Doggie, and she runs under the couch.

There are many other and better ways to explain this, I am sure.  Let's hope that people will present their thoughts in a mature and fair way.

Thanks.