Black holes are among the most remarkable and mysterious objects in space. Light and time distort, and nothing comes out of their center, not even a gravitational wave.
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According to new work by the Chandra X-ray Center, run for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the sound of space objects depends on a specific black hole, as well as how we listen and perceive that “noise.”
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The signals have been synthesized to the extent of human hearing by magnifying them 57 and 58 octaves above their true pitch – they are heard up to 288 billion times more than their original frequencies.
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NASA points out that the popular misconception that there is no sound in the universe stems from the fact that most of the space is essentially a vacuum that has no medium to propagate sound waves.
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Convert to audible frequencies
However, sound is only one type of wave, so NASA and Chandra X-Ray have created a “catalog of celestial sonications” that includes emissions from space objects observed in visible light, X-rays and other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum – and then scientists have converted the formulas to frequencies that we can hear.
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| Sonification is a technique that converts various data into audio signals. In general, sonicated data can be – after further appropriate editing – played on most musical instruments or sung, but above all it can be converted into computer sound. In the current case, therefore, it is a matter of converting astronomical data into sound. |
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Some of the previously published sonications include, for example, the “sounds” of the core of our Milky Way galaxy, supernovae and nebulae. So now NASA has shared two new black hole sonications.
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Interesting sounds from a cluster of galaxies
The first case is a black hole at the center of Messier 87 (M87), 53 million light-years away, which became the first “photographed” black hole in 2019 – it was captured by a telescope as part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project.
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The sonication of the Messier 87 black hole involves the observation of X-rays, visual light and radio waves – and then converts them into sound waves, which researchers say are “surprisingly harmonious and ethereal.” You can play the audio / video below.
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This is the black hole in the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy
Video: NASA
However, the second black hole (this is the introductory audio / video of the article – editor’s note) brings a different story. The hole in the heart of the cluster of galaxies in the constellation Perseus differs from most other sonic targets because it is located in a cloud of hot gas that permeates the cluster.
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This cluster of galaxies contains a large amount of gas, which surrounds hundreds or even thousands of galaxies, thus providing the necessary medium for the propagation of sound waves. The waves generated in that gas are better classified as “sound” than X-rays and other radiation from M87.
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In addition, since 2003, according to NASA, a black hole in the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster, about 240 million light-years away, has been associated with sound. Astronomers had already discovered that the pressure waves emitted by the black hole caused waves in the hot gas, which is not detectable to the human ear, but could be converted to tone.
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Experts therefore processed the astronomical data from the black hole, which they obtained from the Chandra space X-ray observatory, by sonication and converted it into tones audible to the human ear. Learning to shift the pitch of black hole sounds from Perseus to a range for human hearing receptors was a major challenge for NASA and the Chandra X-ray Center.
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But it worked – the signals were subsequently re-synthesized to the extent of human hearing by increasing them by 57 and 58 octaves above their true height at natural vibrations. The resulting “melodies” can now be heard 144 and 288 billion times more than their original frequency.
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