NASA shared a brand new video on Instagram on the beautiful but ‘eerie sounds’ from the cosmic reef. Here’s all you need to know about the update from space.
The cosmic reef and its eerie sounds
NASA’s dedicated Instagram handle for the Hubble Space Telescope is a source of images and videos that show us the wonders of the universe. Their new post is a blessing for those who enjoy out-of-earth content. However, unlike their regular posts, the new one comes with a melodious element.
NASA’s new post is a sonification of the cosmic reef. “The beautifully eerie “sounds” of the Cosmic Reef bring color to life!” captioned NASA. And, probably everyone who listens to the sound will agree with this. So far the video has over 610,402 views. And, users enjoyed sharing Halloween-themed messages. “Sounds kinda scary compared to others,” shared one user. After all, it is very different from the other sonification shared by NASA.
The story behind the eerie melody
“Hubble’s 30th-anniversary image shows two nebulae, NGC 2014 and NGC 2020. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own, the Cosmic Reef is 163,000 light-years away. The massive red nebula is a stellar nursery, while the smaller blue nebula is created from material ejected from the star at its center. Red indicates the presence of hydrogen and nitrogen, and blue indicates oxygen. In this sonification, blue was assigned higher pitches and red lower pitches,” explained NASA.