NASA photo captures sound barrier being broken

cnn.com

6 pointsungut3 comments

NASA teams also collected data on the volume of sound made by XB-1 on the flight route.

Boom says its analysis has found that no audible sonic boom reached the ground during the flight.

Minimizing sonic boom has been a key goal for engineers involved in the race to bring about the return of commercial supersonic air travel.

That's interesting. Could anybody explain how they actually managed to do that? I always thought sonic booms were just this quirk of physics that is more-or-less unchangable, is their method of supressing such booms just flying higher, or is there some technology advancement that allows for this?

I think it's that it does make a sound, but cleverly directs it so that it bounces of the atmosphere in such a way that it doesn't end up travelling towards the ground.

You are right, an object at supersonic speeds will create a sonic boom, but it can be mitigated by structuring the object in such a way that it shapes the sound wave(s) in such a way that they reduce the noise at ground level.

This is a great explainer from Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM5lbIzH2kc

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