Soaring to the depths of our universe, gallant spacecraft roam the cosmos, snapping images of celestial wonders. Some spacecraft have instruments capable of capturing radio emissions. When scientists convert these to sound waves, the results are eerie to hear.

In time for Halloween, we've put together a compilation of elusive "sounds" of howling planets and whistling helium that is sure to make your skin crawl.

Spooky Sounds from Across the Solar System

NASA

space

VarietyOfSounds

Kumbh Mela, Allahabad, India. 2013.

During the Kumbh Mela festival not everything is spirituality. The fair offers endless of bizarre shows, but this one exceeded my expectations. The motorbikes turn around a giant barrel wall, people extends 10 rupee bills and drivers risk their lives (and others) to take them.

Durante el festival Kumbh Mela no todo es espiritualidad. La feria ofrece un sin fin de shows bizarros y de mala calidad, pero éste superó mis expectativas. Las motocicletas giran por las paredes del barril gigante, la gente extiende billetes de 10 rupias y los conductores  arriesgan su vida (y la de los demás) para tomarlos. 

Suicide Motorcycle Show Kumbh Mela / Allahabad, India

Audio recording of the Doppler shift in the high-frequency radio signals received from Mars Express by Bertrand Pinel, 29 December 2013, in his garden near Castelnaudary, France. Credit & Copyright (C) B. Pinel. Used by permission. Details via ESA's Mars Express blog http://wp.me/p2E5wN-aU

Mars Express flies by Phobos 29 Dec 2013

Audio data collected by the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI), which includes an acoustic sensor, during Huygens' descent, 14 January 2005. This recording is a laboratory reconstruction of the sounds heard by Huygens' microphones. Several sound samples, taken at different times during the descent, are here combined together and give a realistic reproduction of what a traveller on board Huygens would have heard during one minute of the descent through Titan's atmosphere.

Credit: ESA/NASA/ASI/HASI team (M. Fulchignoni)

Huygens: Alien winds descent

Kepler: Star KIC12268220C Light Curve Waves to Sound

Kepler: Star KIC7671081B Light Curve Waves to Sound

Voyager: Lightning on Jupiter

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

Juno: Entering Jupiter's Magnetosphere

Juno: Crossing Jupiter's Bow Shock

This recording was produced by converting into audible sounds some of the radar echoes received by Huygens during the last few kilometers of its descent onto Saturn's moon Titan. As the probe approaches the ground, both the pitch and intensity increase. Scientists will use intensity of the echoes to speculate about the nature of the surface.
Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Radar Echoes From Titan's Surface

On approach to Saturn, data obtained by the Cassini spacecraft are already posing a puzzling question: How long is the day on Saturn?
Credit: NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency

Scientists Find That Saturn's Rotation Period Is A Puzzle

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: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Iowa

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

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

*Joint winner of the Sounds of UCL competition*
Mechanical Engineering Wave Tank - Kate Oliver
The ocean towing tank can reproduce the waves found in deep water, and is often home to ship models, prototypes for extracting tidal energy, or sea-bourne structures. Engineers use this facility, under the Engineering café, to test their designs and get the information about how water moves around and through them that computer models still aren't good enough to give. Controlled by computers that determine the size and frequency of the waves, panels push and pull hundreds of litres of water into a working model of the ocean.

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This track is published under Creative Commons Attribution, so you may download, use and remix, but you must cite the sound recordist and UCL as the source.

This track is part of our Sounds of UCL, a series of audio recordings from around the university created by our staff and students. For more sounds, check out the full set here:
https://soundcloud.com/uclsound/sets/sounds-of-ucl

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the world's top universities. Across all disciplines our faculties are known for their research-intensive approaches, academic excellence and engagement with global challenges. This is the basis of our world-renowned degree programmes. Visit us at ucl.ac.uk.

Sounds of UCL (joint 1st place): Mechanical Engineering wave tank

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.