The core of our Milky Way galaxy is densely packed with gas, dust, stars and stellar remnants, but its centerpiece is a monster black hole with a mass of 4 million Suns called Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”). This sonification tracks an image of the galactic center captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The translation begins on the left side of the image and moves to the right, with sounds representing the positions and brightness of the sources. Objects located toward the top of the image play as higher pitches, while their brightness determines the volume. X-rays seen by Chandra reveal gas heated to millions of degrees from stellar explosions and outflows from Sagittarius A*. 

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/Kimberly Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (Matt Russo, Andrew Santaguida)

Galactic Center X-ray Sonification

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

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

A near-infrared image of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, captured by NASA’s Webb Telescope, has been mapped to a symphony of sounds. Musicians assigned unique notes to the semi-transparent, gauzy regions and very dense areas of gas and dust in the nebula, culminating in a buzzing soundscape. 

The sonification scans the image from left to right. The soundtrack is vibrant and full, representing the detail in this gigantic, gaseous cavity that has the appearance of a mountain range. The gas and dust in the top half of the image are represented in blue hues and windy, drone-like sounds. The bottom half of the image, represented in ruddy shades of orange and red, has a clearer, more melodic composition.
 
Brighter light in the image is louder. The vertical position of light also dictates the frequency of sound. For example, bright light near the top of the image sounds loud and high, but bright light near the middle is loud and lower pitched. Dimmer, dust-obscured areas that appear lower in the image are represented by lower frequencies and clearer, undistorted notes.

Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-webb-s-first-full-color-images-data-are-set-to-sound

Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI; Accessibility Production: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and Kimberly Arcand (CXC/SAO), Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida (SYSTEM Sounds), Quyen Hart (STScI), Claire Blome (STScI), and Christine Malec (consultant).

Webb’s Cosmic Cliffs Sonification

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

This collection of songs is a soundtrack to growing tired of the same-old same-old, not necessarily because of a mid-life crisis, depression, attention deficit, or anything other than you've had enough of some experience. These songs are a bit ambient and experimental compared to my others, but with some patience, you'll hopefully hear something new.  As usual, the only sounds here were made with my bass and laptop via an audio interface. The album cover here was generated by Stable Diffusion.

Binary Scar

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

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

Original space audio recordings provided courtesy of NASA and The University of Iowa. https://space-audio.org/

Juno: Jupiter’s Auroras

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.

Black Hole 'Sound' in the Perseus Galaxy Cluster

NASA

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