Key Highlights
- This sonification of the Galactic Center is a part of the NASA's Universe of Learning (UoL) program
- It allows space enthusiasts to listen to the center of the Milky Way
We have seen images and videos of our Milky Way galaxy captured by telescopes, but now for the first time, NASA (National Aeronautics Space Administration) has provided the opportunity to hear the sound of the centre of the Milky Way with a process of Sonification that translates data into sound.
This sonification project is led by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center as part of the space agency's Universe of Learning (UoL) program. It allows space enthusiasts to listen to the centre of the Milky Way (called the Galactic Center) as observed in X-ray, optical, and infrared light.
In the video below, as the cursor moves across the image, sounds represent the position and brightness of the sources.
"The translation begins on the left side of the image and moves to the right, with the sounds representing the position and brightness of the sources. The light of objects located towards the top of the image is heard as higher pitches while the intensity of the light controls the volume."
"The crescendo happens when we reach the bright region to the lower right of the image. This is where the 4-million-solar-mass supermassive black hole at the centre of the Galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* (A-star), resides, and where the clouds of gas and dust are the brightest," noted NASA in its official blog post.
Besides translating the data on Galactic Center into sound, this project has also produced sonified versions of the remains of a supernova called Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, and the "Pillars of Creation" located in Messier 16.
The center of our Milky Way galaxy is too distant for us to visit in person, but we can still explore it. Telescopes give us a chance to see what the Galactic Center looks like in different types of light. By translating the inherently digital data (in the form of ones and zeroes) captured by telescopes in space into images, astronomers create visual representations that would otherwise be invisible to us.
But what about experiencing these data with other senses like hearing? Sonification is the process that translates data into sound, and a new project brings the center of the Milky Way to listeners for the first time. The translation begins on the left side of the image and moves to the right, with the sounds representing the position and brightness of the sources. The light of objects located towards the top of the image are heard as higher pitches while the intensity of the light controls the volume. Stars and compact sources are converted to individual notes while extended clouds of gas and dust produce an evolving drone. The crescendo happens when we reach the bright region to the lower right of the image. This is where the 4-million-solar-mass supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* (A-star), resides, and where the clouds of gas and dust are the brightest.
Users can listen to data from this region, roughly 400 light years across, either as "solos" from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope, or together as an ensemble in which each telescope plays a different instrument. Each image reveals different phenomena happening in this region about 26,000 light years from Earth. The Hubble image outlines energetic regions where stars are being born, while Spitzer's infrared image shows 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*.
In addition to the Galactic Center, this project has also produced sonified versions of the remains of a supernova called Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, and the "Pillars of Creation" located in Messier 16.
Sound plays a valuable role in our understanding of the world and cosmos around us. Explore how scientists are using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other instruments around the world and in space to study the cosmos through sound at the Universe of Sound website.
This sonification of the Galactic Center, Cas A, and M16 was led by the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) as part of the NASA's Universe of Learning (UoL) program. NASA's Science Activation program strives to enable NASA science experts and to incorporate NASA science content into the learning environment effectively and efficiently for learners of all ages. The collaboration was driven by visualization scientist Kimberly Arcand (CXC), astrophysicist Matt Russo and musician Andrew Santaguida (both of the SYSTEMS Sound project.)
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. NASA's Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Sonoma State University.
