About NASA’s Sun + Eclipse Series

Meet the Sun. Even if you think you know our star, our new miniseries from NASA’s Curious Universe will show you why Sun science is heating up in 2024—and why NASA experts have so much more to discover. Get ready for the hair-raising experience of a total solar eclipse, and learn how anyone can pitch in through citizen science. See the vibrant and sometimes chaotic close-up details of the Sun, and hear how NASA keeps astronauts and spacecraft safe from solar outbursts. And go inside a pioneering mission to touch the Sun’s atmosphere and investigate some of its biggest unanswered questions. NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast. Discover more adventures with NASA experts at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse



About NASA’s Curious Universe Podcast

Come get curious with NASA. As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity.

NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter

Discover more ad-free, original NASA shows at nasa.gov/podcasts

Find the full NASA’s Curious Universe catalog at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

The Sun + Eclipse Series

This recording was made by the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on Feb. 19, 2021, just about 18 hours after landing on the mission’s first sol or Martian day. The rover’s mast, holding the microphone, was still stowed on Perseverance’s deck, and so the sound is muffled, a little like the sound one hears listening to a seashell or having a hand cupped over the ear. Just a little wind can be heard.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero

First Audio Recording of Sounds on Mars

Messier 51 (M51) is perhaps better known by its nickname of the Whirlpool Galaxy because its face-on orientation to Earth reveals its wound-up spiral arms. This gives telescopes here a view of another spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way, whose structure we cannot observe directly from our position within it. The sonification tracks along a line emanating from the galaxy's core to the edge of the image and scanning clockwise. The light encountered by this line has been mapped to the notes of a melodic minor scale. The sequence represents X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The bright core, which harbors a supermassive black hole, produces a constant low hum punctuated by short sounds from compact bright sources within the galaxy, including many stellar-sized black holes. 

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R.Kilgard et al; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/Kimberly Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (Matt Russo, Andrew Santaguida)

M51 X-ray Sonification

Listen to the rhythms of the pulsating red giant star called 74 Draconis based on brightness measurements from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Just below the surfaces of these stars, hot gas rises, cools, and then sinks, where it heats up again, much like a pan of boiling water on a hot stove. This motion produces waves of changing pressure – sound waves. The interaction of these waves results in orderly motion called standing waves that create measurable changes in the star’s brightness. Larger stars produce longer oscillations and thus have deeper tones. To produce audible tones, astronomers multiplied its oscillation frequency by 3 million times. (Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (USRA), M. Hon et al., 2021)

Red Giant Star 74 Draconis Pulsation

Listen to the rhythms of the pulsating red giant star called Edasich based on brightness measurements from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Just below the surfaces of these stars, hot gas rises, cools, and then sinks, where it heats up again, much like a pan of boiling water on a hot stove. This motion produces waves of changing pressure – sound waves. The interaction of these waves results in orderly motion called standing waves that create measurable changes in the star’s brightness. Larger stars produce longer oscillations and thus have deeper tones. To produce audible tones, astronomers multiplied its oscillation frequency by 3 million times. (Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (USRA), M. Hon et al., 2021)

Red Giant Star Edasich Pulsations

When a star like the Sun begins to run out of helium to burn, it will blow off huge clouds of gas and dust. These outbursts can form spectacular structures such as the one seen in the Cat's Eye nebula. This image of the Cat's Eye contains both X-rays from Chandra around the center and visible light data from the Hubble Space Telescope, which show the series of bubbles expelled by the star over time. To listen to these data, there is a radar-like scan that moves clockwise emanating from the center point to produce pitch. Light that is further from the center is heard as higher pitches while brighter light is louder. The X-rays are represented by a harsher sound, while the visible light data sound smoother. The circular rings create a constant hum, interrupted by a few sounds from spokes in the data. The rising and falling pitches that can be heard are due to the radar scan passing across the shells and jets in the nebula.  (Credit: NASA/CXC/K. Arcand and SYSTEM Sound/M. Russo & A. Santaguida, 2021)

Cat's Eye Nebula Sonification

Since 2003, the black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster has been associated with sound. This is because astronomers 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. Now a new sonification brings more notes to this black hole sound machine. A new sonification — that is, the translation of astronomical data into sound — is being released in time for NASA’s Black Hole Week this year.

In some ways, this sonification is unlike any other done before because it revisits the actual sound waves discovered in data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The popular misconception that there is no sound in space originates with the fact that most of space is essentially a vacuum, providing no medium for sound waves to propagate through. A galaxy cluster, on the other hand, has copious amounts of gas that envelops the hundreds or even thousands of galaxies within it, providing an avenue for the sound waves to travel.

In this new sonification of Perseus, the sound waves that were previously identified were extracted and made audible for the first time. The sound waves were extracted in radial directions, that is, outwards from the center. The signals were then resynthesized into the range of human hearing by scaling them upward by 57 and 58 octaves above their true pitch. Another way to put this is that they are being heard 144 and 288 quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) times higher than their original frequency. The radar-like scan around the image allows you to hear waves emitted in different directions. In the visual image of these data, blue and purple both show X-ray data captured by Chandra.

Learn more: https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2022/sonify5/ 

Sonification Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

Black Hole Sonification: Perseus

Astronomical data from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster has been translated into sounds we can hear.
artist: Chandra X-ray Observatory
(Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand, M. Russo & A. Santaguida)

Black Hole 'Sound' in the Perseus Galaxy Cluster

Measurements collected by the Waves instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its close flyby of Jupiter’s moon Europa on Sept. 29, 2022 have been converted to an audible frequency. The variation of frequency of the plasma waves observed near Europa can be heard as the plasma density varies.
For more information about NASA’s Juno mission, visit: http://nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.com 
Details about the Europa flyby can be found at: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-juno-will-perform-close-flyby-of-jupiter-s-icy-moon-europa
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/Univ of Iowa

Audio from NASA’s Juno Mission: Europa Flyby

The system called R Aquarii contains two stars — a white dwarf and a red giant — in orbit around each other. In a composite visual image, Hubble data (red and blue) reveal spectacular structures that are evidence of outbursts generated by the pair of stars buried at the center of the image. X-rays from Chandra show a jet from the white dwarf banging into the material surrounding it and creating shock waves. In the sonification of R Aquarii, the piece evolves as a radar-like scan of the image, clockwise starting at the 12 o’clock position. The volume changes in proportion to the brightness of sources in Hubble’s visible light and Chandra’s X-ray image, while the distance from the center dictates the musical pitch (higher notes are farther out). The deep thuds toward the four corners are “diffraction spikes,” which are artifacts from the bright central star. Listeners can hear jets from the white dwarf as the cursor travels near the two o’clock and eight o’clock positions. The ribbon-like arcs captured by Hubble create a rising and falling melody that sounds similar to a set of singing bowls (metal bowls that produce different sounds and tones when struck with a mallet), while the Chandra data are rendered to sound more like a synthetic and windy purr.
NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

R Aquarii Sonification

Apollo 11: That's One Small Step for (a) Man

Courtesty of Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS)aboard NASA’s Van Allen Probes team at the University of Iowa

Chorus Radio Waves within Earth's Atmosphere

Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions, which were monitored by our Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth's northern and southern lights. This is an audio file of radio emissions from Saturn.

Cassini: Saturn Radio Emissions #1

Kepler: Star KIC12268220C Light Curve Waves to Sound

Kepler: Star KIC7671081B Light Curve Waves to Sound

Stardust: Passing Comet Tempel 1

Voyager 1's plasma wave instrument detected the vibrations of dense interstellar plasma, or ionized gas, from October to November 2012 and April to May 2013. This sound reproduces the amplitude and frequency of the plasma waves as "heard" by Voyager 1.

Voyager: Interstellar Plasma Sounds

Voyager: Lightning on Jupiter

Cassini: Saturn Radio Emissions #2

Meet the Sun. Even if you think you know our star, our new miniseries from NASA’s Curious Universe will show you why Sun science is heating up in 2024—and why NASA experts have so much more to discover. Get ready for the hair-raising experience of a total solar eclipse, and learn how anyone can pitch in through citizen science. See the vibrant and sometimes chaotic close-up details of the Sun, and hear how NASA keeps astronauts and spacecraft safe from solar outbursts. And go inside a pioneering mission to touch the Sun’s atmosphere and investigate some of its biggest unanswered questions. NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast. Discover more adventures with NASA experts at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

NASA's Curious Universe: Here Comes the Sun Series

About NASA’s Curious Universe Podcast

Come get curious with NASA. As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity.

NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter

Discover more ad-free, original NASA shows at nasa.gov/podcasts

Find the full NASA’s Curious Universe catalog at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

 



 

About the Episode:

The Sun is our closest star. Billions of years ago, it shaped the formation of our home planet and the beginning of life on Earth. Today, it provides the heat and energy that powers our civilization, but it can also disrupt our technology and spacecraft through explosive outbursts of radiation. Join NASA Sun scientist Joe Westlake on a journey from the surface of Earth to the Sun’s core to learn how intricately we’re connected to our star and the progress we’ve made unraveling its mysteries. This is episode one of the Sun and Eclipse series from NASA’s Curious Universe, an official NASA podcast.

Sun Series: The Sun, Our Star

In this episode we’ll focus on Gateway, a small space station NASA is developing to place in orbit at the Moon. We’ll speak with Mark Wiese, who leads the team that will ensure Gateway will receive the cargo, equipment, and supplies it needs to support Artemis astronauts.

Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Episode 126: Gateway: The Logistics of an Outpost at the Moon

On episode 328, learn more about NASA’s first robotic lunar rover, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, also known as VIPER, and its journey to the lunar surface.

Houston We Have a Podcast: VIPER

On April 8, 2024, the Moon will pass in front of the Sun, casting a shadow across a long swath of Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Total solar eclipses have fascinated human beings for thousands of years. Watching the Moon eclipse the Sun is a surreal, multisensory experience you're not likely to forget. But Eclipses also offer unique opportunities for NASA to study the relationship between our star and home planet. Learn how to experience a Total Solar Eclipse. Join current and former NASA sun scientists Kelly Korreck, Fred “Mr. Eclipse” Espenak and Cherilynn Morrow on a journey through time and space to solve eclipse mysteries.

About NASA’s Curious Universe Podcast

Come get curious with NASA. As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity.

NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter

Discover more ad-free, original NASA shows at nasa.gov/podcasts

Find the full NASA’s Curious Universe catalog at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

Sun Series: How to Experience a Total Solar Eclipse

On episode 329, the CHAPEA crew checks in on their eighth month in a Mars simulated habitat and a NASA biostatistician discusses the process of analysis, interpretation, and presentation of scientific data.

Houston We Have a Podcast: Mars Audio Log #8

How often do you think about your nearest star? Though it may not seem like it from here on Earth, our trusty Sun is a place of mystery. Take a good look at its influence on our planet – through the otherworldly experience of eclipse, maybe, or the aurora – and you might get sucked in… to a citizen science project, that is. Join NASA Sun scientists like Liz Macdonald and volunteers like Hanjie Tan to listen to crickets fooled by the false night of an eclipse, discover new colors in the aurora, and hunt for comets hiding in the plasma of our Sun’s atmosphere. And learn how you can get involved in NASA science while experiencing our nearest star firsthand.  This is episode three of the Sun and Eclipse series from NASA’s Curious Universe, an official NASA podcast.

About NASA’s Curious Universe Podcast

Come get curious with NASA. As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity.

NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter

Discover more ad-free, original NASA shows at nasa.gov/podcasts

Find the full NASA’s Curious Universe catalog at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

Sun Series: You (Yes, You!) Can Help NASA Study the Sun

Dave Mitchell brings extensive experience as an engineer and project manager to a new position leading a small team with the broad mandate of improving acquisitions and program and project management across NASA.

Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Episode 127: Chief Program Management Officer

On episode 330, a NASA flight controller discusses all you need to know about the total solar eclipse happening on April 8, how to best witness it, and the safety precautions that come with it.

Houston We Have a Podcast: Eclipse Across North America 2024

Episode description:  

It’s time. On April 8, 2024, millions of people across North America will see a total solar eclipse. Get the most out of totality with this special bonus episode. Listen up for safety tips, learn how to make your own pinhole projector to safely and learn how anyone—including you!—can contribute to NASA research through citizen science. And if you’re not in the path of totality, watch NASA’s live broadcast starting at 1 p.m. EDT. NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast.     

See when the eclipse starts where you are with NASA’s Eclipse Explorer: go.nasa.gov/EclipseExplorer

Sun Series: Minisode! Countdown to Total Solar Eclipse 2024

On episode 331, flight directors discuss NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test and the operations behind this historic mission.

Houston We Have a Podcast: Crew Flight Test: The Mission

Sun Series: Space Weather | About the Episode

From Earth, the Sun can seem steady and predictable. But when you look at our star close up, there’s a lot going on. Go behind the scenes with NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office, a team monitoring space weather—eruptions of radiation and plasma from the Sun that can wreak havoc on spacecraft and pose dangers to astronauts. We’ll also revisit the most powerful geomagnetic storm on record, an 1859 event that produced northern lights visible in the tropics and made electrical systems go haywire.

Introducing NASA’s Curious Universe         

Get curious with NASA. As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity. 

NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter 

Discover more ad-free, original NASA shows at nasa.gov/podcasts 

Find the full NASA’s Curious Universe catalog at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

Sun Series: Space Weather

This is a sound that was electronically placed onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. 

Golden Record: Kiss, Mother And Child

Golden Record: Life Signs, Pulsar

This is a greeting to the universe that was electronically placed on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.

English Translation: "May all be very well"

Golden Record: Akkadian Greeting

This is a greeting to the universe that was electronically placed on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.

English Translation: "Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you have time."

Golden Record: Amoy (Min Dialect)Greeting

Juno will improve our understanding of the solar system's beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.

Juno: Crossing Jupiter's Bow Shock

And beware the weird radio emissions Galileo gathered from Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede.

Beware of Jupiter’s Largest Moon Ganymede

Before settling into orbit around Saturn, Cassini faced a white-knuckle ride through the plane of the planet’s rings. When converted into an audio file, the interstellar cacophony is reminiscent of a hellstorm on Earth.

Cassini Shields Up

These melodious tones are created at a special frequency in a plasma with a magnetic field. The frequency is set by the number of electrons in a given volume (the electron density) and the strength of the magnetic field. Hence, the frequency of these waves, called upper hybrid waves, can provide a very accurate measure of the density of the plasma; a fundamental property of the Jovian environment of interest to scientists. These emissions were acquired by Voyager 2 as it passed through the outer magnetosphere in 1979.

Voyager Plasma Sounds

New research from the up-close Grand Finale orbits of NASA’s Cassini mission shows a surprisingly powerful interaction of plasma waves moving from Saturn to its moon Enceladus. Researchers converted the recording of plasma waves into a “whooshing” audio file that we can hear -- in the same way a radio translates electromagnetic waves into music. Much like air or water, plasma (the fourth state of matter) generates waves to carry energy. The recording was captured by the Radio Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument Sept. 2, 2017, two weeks before Cassini was deliberately plunged into the atmosphere of Saturn. 

For more information, visit: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Iowa

Sounds of Saturn: Hear Radio Emissions of the Planet and Its Moon Enceladus

Data from the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has captured the dynamic movement of the Sun’s atmosphere for over 20 years. Today, we can hear the Sun’s movement — all of its waves, loops and eruptions — with our own ears.

This story incorporates data sonified by the Stanford Experimental Physics Lab and music from Lee Rosevere.

10 Minute Meditations

Flow

Sounds of the Sun

The Stanford Experimental Physics Lab sonified data from the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). This humming sound captures the Sun’s natural vibrations and provides scientists with a concrete representation of its dynamic movements.

For more solar sounds, visit: http://soi.stanford.edu/results/sounds.html

Sun Sonification

This set of sounds from the surface of Mars were recorded by the microphone on the side of NASA’s Perseverance Rover on February 20, 2021. In the first set, sounds from the rover itself dominate. In the second set, the sound was filtered to make sounds from Mars more audible. You can hear a little wind in the second set. 
 
This is the first time a Mars rover has been equipped with a microphone. The images in this video were taken by Perseverance's Navigation Cameras, or Navcams, on the same day as the microphone sounds, Feb. 20, 2021.
 
For more information about Perseverance, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/perseverance
 
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Sounds From Mars: Filters Out Rover Self-Noise

Hello, we’re NASA. You may have seen our astronauts, rocket launches, or Mars rovers — but have you heard our sounds? From interviews with astronauts and engineers to stories that take you on a tour of the galaxy, NASA’s audio offerings let you experience the thrill of space exploration without ever leaving Earth.

NASA

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