NASA photo captures sound barrier being broken
cnn.comNASA 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?
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
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.