NASA telescopes are tuned to black hole prelude and fugue

NASA has released three new cosmic sounds related to the black holes, the most dense members of our universe. These scientific productions are the sonication or translation of data collected by space NASA telescopes, such as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope, and the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE).

This new three trio represents various aspects of the black hole. Black holes are neither static nor monolithic. They evolve over time and can be found in a variety of sizes and environments.

WR 124

The first move is a prelude to the possibility of the birth of a black hole. The WR124 is a huge, bright, short-lived star known as the Wolf Rayette, about 28,000 light years from Earth. These stars throw the outer layers into space, creating spectacular arrangements seen in infrared images from the Webb Telescope.

In the sonication of the WR124, the nebula sounds as a flute and the background as a bell and a star. At the center of WR124, where the scan begins before moving outwards, it is a hot core of stars that explode as a supernova and potentially collapse and leave the black hole behind. As the scan moves outward from the center, the X-ray source detected by Chandra is translated into a harp sound.

Data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope sounds like a metal bell-like sound, but the light of the central star is first mapped to produce a descending scream-like sound. This work is rounded by a string that plays additional data from the ESA (European Space Agency) Herschel Space Telescope’s infrared telescopic trio. NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA’s retired wide image research explorer (wise) coded.

SS 433

In this second movement of black hole composition, listeners can explore duets. The SS 433 is a binary (double) system that sings on X-rays, approximately 18,000 light years away. The two members of SS 433 include our Sun-like stars, either neutron stars or black holes, in orbit around a much heavier partner. This orbital dance causes swells with X-rays that are tuned by the XMM-Newton telescopes of Chandra, IXPE and ESA.

These x-ray notes are combined with radio and infrared data to provide background for this celestial waltz. Radiowave nebula resembles a drifting manatee, with scans moving from right to left. The lights towards the top of the image map radio, infrared, and x-ray light lights to low, medium and high pitch ranges, and map to high pitch sounds. The bright background star is played as a water drop sound, and the position of the binary system is heard as a picked sound and pulsates with variations due to orbital dance.

Centaur a

The third and final move in black hole-themed sonication is a crescendo with a distant galaxy known as Centaur A, about 12 million light years away from Earth. At the heart of Centaurus A is a huge black hole sending jets that are booming across the entire length of the galaxy. Cleaning clockwise from the top of the image, the scan will encounter Chandra’s x-rays and play them as a single note wind chime.

X-ray light from IXPE is heard as a continuous range of frequencies that produce wind-like sounds. Visible light data from the MPG telescope at the Southern European Observatory shows galaxy stars mapped to string instruments containing foreground and background objects.