NASA shared the spooky and haunting sound of the black hole. The audio represents the sound waves coming out from the one present about 250 million light years away from us.
The sound of the black hole
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reshared the black hole’s sound. The haunting and eerie clip represents sound waves coming out of a supermassive black hole present 250 million light years away from Earth. The clip reveals sound waves rippling out. It has been transposed up to 25 and 58 octaves, making them audible by humans.
“The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel. A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we’ve picked up actual sound. Here it’s amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole!” tweeted NASA.
More on the sonification
The audio clip, first released in May came from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The Chandra X-Ray observatory is a sophisticated telescope capable of detecting X-ray emissions in space. It was launched in 1999 aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia. “Astronomers also discovered that pressure waves sent out by the black hole caused ripples in the cluster’s hot gas that could be translated into a note — one that humans cannot hear some 57 octaves below middle C,” explained NASA.
However, this is not the first time NASA did a sonification of the black hole. Previously, it did the same for a black hole located 54 million years away in the center of Galaxy Messier 87. It is interesting to note that the loudest part of the ‘music’ corresponds with the brightest part of the image. Additionally, NASA is also credited with recording extraterrestrial sounds of Mars. These sonifications are a part of NASA’s Universe of Learning (UoL) program.