eli5 How does the sound barrier break when planes fly? What is the boom? Plane accumulating wind or what is happening?

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eli5 How does the sound barrier break when planes fly? What is the boom? Plane accumulating wind or what is happening?

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A sonic boom occurs when the speed of a plane matches the speed of sound.

What happens is that the individual sound waves generated by the plane over the period of time during which the sonic boom occurs all catch with with each other and add together to cause one massive shock wave.

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