Whether it can kill people depends on the distance from the center of the sonic boom. If a sonic boom occurs in front of a person, the most direct result is a ruptured eardrum and death from the vibration. Just stay far away or wear soundproof protective gear and you'll be fine!

Sonic Boom

When an object moves close to the speed of sound, there will be a strong resistance, causing the object to oscillate strongly and its speed to decay. This phenomenon is commonly known as the Sound Barrier. When the sound barrier is broken, the compression of air by the object itself cannot propagate quickly, and gradually accumulates on the windward side of the object, eventually forming a shock wave surface, where the acoustic energy is highly concentrated. When this energy reaches people's ears, they will feel a short and extremely strong explosion sound, called a sonic boom.

Principle of production

The propagation of sound in the air is like the water waves generated by throwing stones into the water. It spreads outward in the form of waves. This is the sound wave. The sound we usually hear is caused by sound waves that travel into the ear and cause the eardrum to vibrate. When an aircraft flies at supersonic speed in the air, a wedge-shaped or cone-shaped wave will appear on the nose or protruding part like a speedboat moving forward in the water. This is a shock wave. The dense sound waves emitted by the aircraft cannot travel to the front of the aircraft, so they are all stacked behind the fuselage, forming a cone-shaped sound cone. When they propagate outward, they interfere and influence each other, and then converge into a sonic boom front shock wave including the nose of the aircraft and a trailing rear shock wave. Although this kind of wave can be compared with the wedge-shaped water wave mentioned above, it has completely different properties. The thickness of the shock wave is very small. After passing through the wave, the pressure, density, and temperature of the air suddenly increase, and the speed immediately decreases. When these two shock waves affect any space or object, they will feel this strong change, which will be reflected in the human ear. The eardrum will be subject to sudden changes in air pressure, and it will feel like two loud thunderous sounds. ring. This sound is called a "sonic boom".

Main hazards

The energy of sonic booms is huge. The sonic boom produced by a fighter jet flying at supersonic speed at low altitude is enough to shatter door and window glass. Someone has measured that the sonic boom generated by a Concorde flying at twice the speed of sound at an altitude of 16,000 meters exerts a pressure of up to 100 Pa on the ground, which is equivalent to exerting a force of 10 kilograms on a glass window of about one square meter. It's not difficult to explain the roar. We convert the pressure into a more intuitive sound intensity. 100 Pa is approximately equivalent to 133 decibels. If you happen to be next to a large speaker at a heavy metal rock concert, you will know what impact a sound of 133 decibels will have on you. Therefore, Concorde was prohibited from flying at supersonic speeds on land. This, together with the high operating costs, directly ended the life of this elegant aircraft. In 2003, all Concordes were withdrawn from the market, and from then on, there were no more supersonic passenger aircraft in the sky. . The strength of the "sonic boom" and the impact on the ground are directly related to the flight altitude of the aircraft. Because shock waves are the same as water waves, the farther away they are, the weaker the intensity of the waves. When an aircraft flies at low-altitude supersonic speeds, not only people and animals on the ground can hear deafening loud noises, which affects people's lives and work, but can also shatter glass and even damage weak buildings, causing direct losses. As the flight altitude increases, this effect becomes weaker and weaker. When it exceeds a certain altitude, the ground will basically not be affected.