As it turns out, the idea of space being a completely silent vacuum is a misconception. And we’re now learning thanks to a recording released by NASA, not only does space have a sound… it’s a goddamn Lovecraftian horror.
The 34-second clip sending social media into a frenzy is a “remixed sonification” of the black hole located at the centre of a galaxy cluster dubbed Perseus. For reference, Perseus is approximately 240 million light years away from Earth (just in case any of you were thinking about ducking over real quick).
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“Since 2003, the black hole at the centre of the Perseus galaxy cluster has been associated with sound,” explained NASA.
“This is because astronomers discovered that pressure waves sent out by the black hole caused ripples in the cluster’s hot gas that could be translated into a note – one that humans cannot hear some 57 octaves below middle C.”
So how is it possible that our woefully human ears are (finally) registering the audio being emitted by Perseus?
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The US space agency added: “The sound waves were extracted in radial directions, that is, outwards from the centre. The signals were then resynthesized into the range of human hearing by scaling them upward by 57 and 58 octaves above their true pitch.”
“Another way to put this is that they are being heard 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher than their original frequency (a quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000.) The radar-like scan around the image allows you to hear waves emitted in different directions.”
In other words, this isn’t a completely faithful representation of what you’d experience in the aural sense if you were to hypothetically get up close and personal with a black hole. Although in that scenario, sound accuracy would probably be the least of your problems.
Still, anyone having trouble staying awake in the dead of night should definitely give the NASA space sound recording a listen.
