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Nasa: Turning pictures of stars, galaxies, black holes into music

Media caption,

Have a listen to Nasa's data sonification here!

Nasa has been turning pictures of space into pieces of music!

Researchers have been using data from Nasa missions - such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope - and turning them into sounds using a process called data sonification.

This process can turn stars, galaxies and even black holes into sounds.

Have a listen and see what you think!

How does data sonification work?

Image source, NASA/CXC/SAO/JPL-Caltech
Image caption,

M51 is a spiral galaxy, about 30 million light years away from Earth

Nasa has shared the sonification for three images of the Chandra Deep Field South, the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), and the M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy).

For these images, the researchers used things like light and colour to make different sounds.

For example in the Chandra Deep Field image, warmer colours like red are heard as low tones, whilst cooler colours like purple are assigned to higher ones.

Each wavelength of light, such as infrared, optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray, have also been given a different frequency range.

Did you know?

The Deep Field Image, is the the most detailed picture of our universe ever taken.

In the Cat's Eye Nebula and Whirlpool Galaxy images light that is further from the centre is heard as higher pitches while brighter light is louder.

When all of these are played together, the researchers are able to create a piece that lets you 'hear' the images.

The sonification project has been created by scientist Kimberly Arcand, astrophysicist Matt Russo and musician Andrew Santaguida, as part of the NASA's Universe of Learning program, to help people experience space in different ways.