"These magnetic loops are analogous to a simple guitar string," said Professor Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen.

"If you pluck a guitar string, you will hear the music."

'Coronal loops' carry acoustic waves in a similar way to how sound is carried through a pipe organ.

Solar explosions called micro-flares generate sound booms which then propagate along the coronal loops.

These blasts send powerful acoustic waves hurtling through the loops at tens of kilometres per second.

Sonic booms of this kind decay in less than an hour and dissipate in the heat of the sun's corona.

The corona is up to 300 times hotter than the photosphere, or the Sun's visible surface.

According to the study, this musical finding could help explain why exactly the corona is hotter.

Professor von Fay-Siebenburgen said: "Studying how plasma is heated to such high temperatures in coronal loops could speed up the technological development of industrial-scale nuclear fusion on Earth."