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

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

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This dark ambient track has a lot of energy in it. This track represents a imagination trip that a listener takes while listening to it. Just you, and no one else in a city called Pripyat, sitting in a lonely room and watching the sunset over Chernobyl while listening to this track. And you feel yourself frozen by the emotions and time slows down, so you could enjoy the absence of loneliness and yourself and the moment. 

Dark Ambient Inner Devil - Sunset In Chernobyl

Curve of time -
a thought takes flight,
scent of a rose.

Vincenzo, aka El Wud, is an electronic musician from Naples, Italy.

A regular participant in our haiku music challenge, El Wud uses sound overlaps, causal collisions and cosmic echoes to create evocative soundscapes.

I translated Vincenzo's haiku from Italian, and made some minor variations. I hope you'll find it inspiring.

Haiku by El Wud

curve of time [naviarhaiku577]

ETHERE4L #04

dark ascent

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

Golden Record: Train

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

From an album that I am still making. It's been a long time since 2011 - and a lot has happened.

Mortician's Wife

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

Original soundtrack from the video game INSIDE by Playdead

Shockwave - Martin Stig Andersen

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

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

Sounds Of Ganymede Plasma Waves Gll G1

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.

Stardust: Passing Comet Tempel 1

NASA

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