It's not the Kinzhal. The mysterious sounds of explosions heard all over Kyiv could have been caused by the Mach Cone: what is this phenomenon?

On the morning of September 26, air alerts were issued three times across Ukraine due to an attack by Kinzhal missiles flying in the direction of Starokonstantyniv, Khmelnytsky region. However, sounds similar to explosions could be heard in Kyiv and a number of other regions, so many media outlets reported a large-scale attack.

However, the Kyiv City Military Administration emphasized not to spread disinformation, as there were no explosions in the capital at that time. Most likely, the powerful sounds were caused by the Mach Cone phenomenon, in this case caused by a Kinzhal air defense missile flying over Kyiv.

The Mach Cone phenomenon

According to scientists, Mach's Cone is a surface that appears when a sound-emitting body moves at a speed greater than the speed of sound. That is, the Mach Cone appears when a body moves faster than the waves it generates.

Most often, this phenomenon is manifested by the sound shock wave of a supersonic aircraft. Unfortunately, during more than 10 years of war, many Ukrainians have seen a supersonic aircraft flying overhead and remembered the powerful sound of a shock wave accompanying the movement of a body at a speed of more than Mach 1, i.e., more than the speed of sound in this environment.

The propagation area of a shock wave from a supersonic aircraft is limited by the Mach cone. A group of scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) and Tsinghua University (China) managed to record a "shock wave" of photons. Like sound, photons of light have a wave nature, so they form the same Mach cone if a body moves faster than the speed of light in the environment.

Scientists emphasize that the light shock wave has the shape of a cone, just like the sound wave, Science Advances writes. To record this phenomenon on video, the researchers used laser pulses as a moving body. Accordingly, the light pulses moved at "superluminal" speed, that is, faster than the speed of light in the environment.

What did Kyiv residents hear?

So, the sounds of explosions that Kyiv residents heard in different aspects that coincided with the trajectory of the Kinzhal missile are the sounds of the sound barrier being broken. Scientists emphasize that the rocket flies at almost hypersonic speed at the final stage. Accordingly, loud noises were heard along its path, which included Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, and Khmelnytskyi regions. This was reported by the specialized Telegram channel monitor.

"We hear the sound as the shock wave travels along the missile's body in a cone. That is, observers can hear the sound of the shock wave along the trajectory of the missile," the experts emphasized.

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