{"id":116230,"date":"2025-09-05T11:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T11:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/116230\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T11:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T11:43:13","slug":"alone-in-his-spaceship-he-hears-a-mysterious-sound-hitting-the-hull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/116230\/","title":{"rendered":"Alone in his spaceship, he hears a mysterious sound hitting the hull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Yang Liwei boarded China\u2019s first human spaceflight, he expected science, silence, and maybe a stunning view of Earth. What he didn\u2019t expect\u2014340 kilometers above the planet\u2014was a strange, persistent sound echoing through his capsule.<\/p>\n<p>His mission, Shenzhou 5, would go down in history. But one moment, in particular, would haunt not just Yang, but future taikonauts as well.<\/p>\n<p>Yang Liwei\u2019s historic flight takes a strange turn<\/p>\n<p>On October 15, 2003, China launched its first astronaut into space. Alone aboard the Shenzhou 5, Yang entered orbit and spent over 21 hours running experiments, observing Earth, and testing how the human body responds to weightlessness.<\/p>\n<p>Then, out of nowhere\u2014an eerie knock.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt sounded like someone was hitting the ship,\u201d he said later. \u201cLike a wooden hammer on an iron bucket.\u201d He peered out the porthole: nothing. No debris. No spacecraft. No movement. And thankfully, no aliens.<\/p>\n<p>After a bumpy return to Earth, Yang reported the incident and even tried to recreate the sound in a lab. But whatever caused it, no one could reproduce it.<\/p>\n<p>The story spread fast. Was it a malfunction? A minor collision? Something more\u2026 extraterrestrial? No theory could be proven.<\/p>\n<p>The unexplained sound: a mystery in orbit<\/p>\n<p>Strangely enough, Yang wasn\u2019t the last to hear it. Astronauts on Shenzhou 6 and 7 also reported a similar knocking noise. So, what could it be?<\/p>\n<p>Experts ruled out sounds from space itself\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.futura-sciences.com\/en\/could-our-galaxy-be-inside-a-giant-hole-this-bold-theory-might-solve-one-of-the-universes-biggest-mysteries_18865\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sound waves<\/a> can\u2019t travel in a vacuum. And it\u2019s unlikely someone or something physically struck the ship.<\/p>\n<p>So what\u2019s left? According to Wee-Seng Soh, a space systems expert at the National University of Singapore, the most logical answer is thermal stress. The spacecraft might have expanded or contracted as it passed through zones of extreme temperature fluctuation during its orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, the event remains unexplained\u2014one of the many small mysteries that spaceflight continues to deliver.<\/p>\n<p>One unexplained knock, and a legend is born<\/p>\n<p>It may have been just a sound. But it became something more: a moment that added mystery to China\u2019s proud entrance into human <a href=\"https:\/\/www.futura-sciences.com\/en\/elon-musk-unveils-his-plan-to-colonize-mars-and-the-site-of-the-first-city_18381\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">space exploration<\/a>. And for Yang Liwei, it\u2019s a story that\u2014twenty years later\u2014still echoes.<\/p>\n<p>                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img-00411-100x100.webp.webp\" class=\"attachment-100x100 size-100x100 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Ang\u00e8le Ingrand\" itemprop=\"image\"  \/>                <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t        Ang\u00e8le Ingrand                <\/p>\n<p>\n    Science journalist    <\/p>\n<p>Fascinated by nature and zoology since childhood, this journalist chose to share her passion through journalism after completing her biology studies. Now in her third year at the journalism school in Cannes, she works at Futura, where she is dedicated to making science accessible and raising public awareness of environmental issues.<\/p>\n<p>                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/auteur-fs-100x100.webp.webp\" class=\"attachment-100x100 size-100x100\" alt=\"author-fs\" itemprop=\"image\"  \/>                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Yang Liwei boarded China\u2019s first human spaceflight, he expected science, silence, and maybe a stunning view of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-116230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}