Can you hear anything in space?
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Sound needs something to travel through, like air, and space is almost empty, so astronauts talk by radio. But in the Perseus galaxy cluster, a black hole sends pressure waves through hot gas. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory found they form a B-flat about 57 octaves below middle C, far too deep for any ear. In 2022, NASA scaled the waves up by 57 and 58 octaves so we can finally hear them.
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Transcript
- Sef Can anyone hear me out here? WOOF!
- Tiggy Nope. Sound needs something to travel through, like air.
- Tiggy Space is almost empty, so astronauts talk by radio.
- Sef So space is totally silent?
- Tiggy Not quite. In one galaxy cluster, a black hole makes waves in hot gas.
- Tiggy They form a B-flat, about fifty-seven octaves below middle C.
- Tiggy Far too deep to hear, until NASA raised the pitch in 2022.
Sources
- NASA Chandra: Chandra "Hears" a Black Hole for the First Time (2003) chandra.harvard.edu
- NASA Chandra: New NASA Black Hole Sonifications with a Remix (2022) chandra.harvard.edu
- Fabian et al. 2003, MNRAS 344, L43: A deep Chandra observation of the Perseus cluster arxiv.org
- University of Illinois Physics Van: Communicating in Space van.physics.illinois.edu
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