For World Oceans Month, enjoy a moment of zen with a symphonic tour of the ocean. Experience the swirls off the coast of Río de la Plata to the upwellings in the Indian Ocean put to musical notes of imagery from our own Earth-observing satellites.

Sounds of the Sea

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, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope in X-ray, optical, and infrared light, respectively. A different instrument represents each observatory, with a xylophone for Chandra, a violin for Hubble and a soft piano for Spitzer. 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. The light of objects located toward the top of the image have higher pitch, while the intensity of the light controls the volume. Stars and compact sources emerge as individual notes, while extended clouds of gas and dust produce an evolving drone. A crescendo happens in the brightest region of the image, where the supermassive black hole resides. The Hubble image outlines energetic regions where stars are being born, while Spitzer’s infrared data show glowing clouds of dust containing complex structures. X-rays from Chandra reveal gas heated to millions of degrees from stellar explosions and outflows from Sagittarius A*. 

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; IR: Spitzer NASA/JPL-Caltech; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/Kimberly Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (Matt Russo, Andrew Santaguida)

Galactic Center Sonification

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, the Whirlpool Galaxy, because its face-on orientation to us highlights its winding spiral arms. This gives our telescopes a different perspective on a spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way, whose structure we cannot observe directly since we’re inside 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 infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. 

At this wavelength, the spiral arms are prominent, so the pitch creeps upward as the spiral extends farther from the core. 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. 

Credit: IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Univ. of AZ/R. Kennicutt; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/Kimberly Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (Matt Russo, Andrew Santaguida)

M51 Infrared Sonification

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

This composition was created using spectral ocean reflectance data, extracted from a series of rolling 32-day average global composites from MODIS-Aqua. The averages are computed every 8-days, making for 48 images per year. The actual data that are extracted represent the mean of a 10x10 box of 9 km2 resolution data (which equals a box of 8,100 km2), in order to help fill in gaps that may arise from cloud cover throughout the year. The center location of that 10x10 box is -16.625o, 153.292o.
 
Credit: Image from MODIS, onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. Sonification: Jon Vandermeulen and Ryan Vandermeulen. Image credit: Ryan Vandermeulen.

Coral Sea Sonification

This is a frozen moment in time - a transect across a beautiful swirling eddy off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Western Bering Sea, as seen from space. The melody corresponds directly to the intensity of red (Rrs-667), green (Rrs-547), and blue (Rrs-443) spectral ocean reflectance data, as detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Aqua satellite. 

Listen closely as the colors harmonize and diverge, manifesting the natural patterns created by microscopic life in the ocean.
 
Credit: Image from MODIS, onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. Sonification: Jon Vandermeulen and Ryan Vandermeulen.  Image credit: Norman Kuring.

Bering Sea Eddy Sonification

A NASA satellite image reveals the beauty created when a big river meets an even bigger ocean outside the Rio de la Plata. We represent this beauty in the form of music, by mathematically translating hidden layers of “ocean color” reflectance data across a transect outbound from the large estuary. The patterns you hear in the music are the same patterns that enable scientists to unravel the microscopic composition of the ocean from space.
 
The song is the same data set repeated four times. In each repetition, a different color takes center stage and performs a solo of sorts while the other colors provide background. In the first part, blue light (Rrs-443 and Rrs-469) rapidly pick an acoustic guitar, while green light (harp) and red light (bass) provide a rhythmic backing. In the second part, blue takes a back seat and red (Rrs-667) takes its turn thumping out a bass solo. In the third part, green light (Rrs-547 and Rrs-555) shines. The result is a semi-subjective interpretation of objective data.

Rio De La Plata Sonification

A series of relatively cloud-free images over Northwest Australia was captured by the Visual Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), from August 1-31, 2016. The music you hear directly represents the day-to-day variations in the intensity of 5 visible-range spectral reflectance (Rrs) channels, extracted from a specific location (-13.359o, 120.984o) over the course of this time series.
  
Credit: Image from VIIRS, onboard Suomi-NPP satellite. Sonification: Jon Vandermeulen and Ryan Vandermeulen. Image credit: Ryan Vandermeulen.

Indian Ocean Sonification

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. This track includes sounds from just the top half of the image, which resembles a dark blue night sky. The gas and dust that are represented in blue hues have been translated to windy, drone-like sounds. The sonification scans the image from left to right.
 
This sonification does not represent sounds recorded in space. Two musicians mapped the telescope’s data to sound, carefully composing music to accurately represent details the team would like listeners to focus on. In a way, this sonification is like modern dance or an impressionist painting – it converts Webb’s image to a new medium to engage and inspire listeners.

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 bottom is loud and lower pitched.

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: Sky

NASA’s Webb Telescope uncovered two views of the Southern Ring Nebula – in near-infrared light (at left in the track image) and mid-infrared light (at right in the track image) – and each has been adapted to sound.

In this sonification, the colors in the images were mapped to pitches of sound – frequencies of light converted directly to frequencies of sound. Near-infrared light is represented by a higher range of frequencies at the beginning of the track. Mid-way through, the notes change, becoming lower overall to reflect that mid-infrared includes longer wavelengths of light.
 
Listen carefully at 15 seconds and 44 seconds. These notes align with the centers of the near- and mid-infrared images, where the stars at the center of the “action” appear. In the near-infrared image that begins the track, only one star is heard clearly, with a louder clang. 

In the second half of the track, listeners will hear a low note just before a higher note, which denotes that two stars were detected in mid-infrared light. The lower note represents the redder star that created this nebula, and the second is the star that appears brighter and larger.
 
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 Southern Ring Nebula Sonification

During its close flyby of Earth in 2013, NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft listened for -- and heard -- a coordinated, global transmission from amateur radio operators using its radio and plasma wave science instrument. The message said "HI" in Morse code. More details about this sound can be found here: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17744

Juno: Morse code "HI" received from Earth

Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand, M. Russo & A. Santaguida

Chandra X-ray Observatory: Cassiopeia A Blast Wave High Energy

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.

Indian Ocean Sonification

NASA

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