What does a black hole sound like? NASA has an answer

For the first time in history, earthlings can hear what a black hole sounds like, a low-pitched groaning, as if a heavy door was being opened again and again.

A 35-second audio clip of the sound was released by NASA earlier this month.

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory gathered the data almost two decades ago. The decision to turn it into sound came only recently, as part of NASA's effort to translate its stunning space photography into something that could be appreciated by the ear.

I started out the first 10 years of my career paying attention to only the visual, and just realized that I had done a complete disservice to people who were either not visual learners or for people who are blind or low-vision.

While the audio tries to replicate what a black hole actually sounds like, Arcand's other interpretations are more or less creative. In those imaginative interpretations, each type of material gets a different sound, elements near the top of images sound higher in tone, and brighter spots are louder.

You can find more examples of NASA's sonifications on the agency's Universe of Sound web page. Arcand has more to say about the venture.

Interview Highlights

The black hole audio was made.

There is a black hole at the core of a cluster of galaxies that burps and sends out all of the sound waves. The scientists who studied the data were able to find out what the note was. We took the sound of the universe singing and brought it back up into the range of human hearing, because we can't hear 57 octave.

An image of the center of the universe.

We take the data and use it to get the information we need. We pay attention to the scientific story to make sure that conversion from light to sound is a good idea for people who are blind or low vision. There is a lot of frenetic activity taking place in the inner region of the Milky Way. It could sound completely different if we were to look at a different galaxy that was calm and restive.

On the sonification of.

This is a good nursery for a baby. These tall columns of gas and dust where stars are forming and you are listening to the interplay between the X-ray information and the optical information and it is really trying to give you a bit of the text.

A bit of emotion can be brought to the data by the soundscapes that are being created.