• Question: How does sololuminescence work?

    Asked by delaram123 to Dilwar, Lou, Rachel, Simon, Susan on 19 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Simon Langley-Evans

      Simon Langley-Evans answered on 19 Nov 2013:

      Delaram- your questions are getting tougher and tougher.
      Sonoluminescence is caused by a sound wave causing the gas held within a bubble in liquid to collapse very quickly. The energy involved in this process is then emitted as a very short flash of light. I am sure our physicists will be able to say a lot more than me, but I know that there are some organisms that do this to emit light in the ocean, but the light effect is just an after effect of the process they use to kill their pray. The Pistol Shrimp produces a bubble by snapping its claw in order to stun smaller prey and as the bubble collapses it undergoes faint, sololuminescence.

    • Photo: Susan Skelton

      Susan Skelton answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Hey delaram,
      Sonoluminescence is the emission of short bursts of light caused by the energy released when tiny bubbles in a liquid collapse.

      The bubbles are very small (0.000001 metres) and are usually forced to collapse quickly using a sound wave. The light flash from the bubbles is very very short – about 0.0000000001 seconds long!

      I’m afraid I can’t tell you how sonoluminescence works, because nobody knows! There are lots theories, but none of them have been proved to be true yet.

      As Simon mentioned, some animals produce sonoluminescence. The best example is the pistol shrimp which produces a type of sonoluminescence from a collapsing bubble created by quickly snapping its claw. However, the light that is produced is much lower than usual sonoluminescence and it is not possible to see it with the naked eye. Scientists think that the light produced isn’t important to the shrimp; it just happens to be made in the process of using the shockwave to kill their prey. Some scientists call this effect “shrimpoluminescence” :).

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