Listen to the sound of the Universe

Bretrick

Bretrick

Well-known Member
Location
Perth Western Australia
Since 2003, the black hole at the centre of the Perseus galaxy cluster has been associated with sound.
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.
Now a new sonification brings more notes to this black hole sound machine. This new sonification — that is, the translation of astronomical data into sound — was released by NASA for Black Hole Week last year.

In some ways, this sonification is unlike any other done before because it revisits the actual sound waves discovered in data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
The popular misconception that there is no sound in space originates with the fact that most of space is essentially a vacuum, providing no medium for sound waves to propagate through.
A galaxy cluster, on the other hand, has copious amounts of gas that envelop the hundreds or even thousands of galaxies within it, providing a medium for the sound waves to travel.

In this new sonification of Perseus, the sound waves astronomers previously identified were extracted and made audible for the first time.
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 the visual image of these data, blue and purple both show X-ray data captured by Chandra.
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

Data Sonification: Black Hole at the Center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster​

 

Lewkat said:
Interesting sounds, to say the least. Energy is noisy.
Click to expand...
Matter also produces sounds, which is how they are able to produce their own gravitational fields.

The deeper you go into space and the universe, the more sounds we hear. Just what the purpose is for all of this, we do not know yet. If you go into an environment that has heat, cold, wind and magnetic forces, the more storms are produced. Not the type of storms you are thinking about like rain and snow, but winds and magnetic waves, which is called space weather.
 
JustDave said:
If a black hole rumbles and no one hears it, does it make a sound? This sounds like a possible debate, but I won't be there.
Click to expand...

Interesting question; here are my initial thoughts

I suppose it depends on how we define “sound”. If the gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that even light won’t escape, then it seems fair to say “sound” won’t escape either. If sound is just simply a pressure wave, then does it need a medium for that pressure wave to travel through? Could a pressure wave from a distant black hole produce its own 'medium' to travel through?

If what we are hearing from a black hole is radio waves of various frequencies and electromagnetic radiation, then would it be considered an audible “sound wave”? Can we only hear it through electronic devices, which might modify the signal in some way into an audible frequency for the human ear; amplify it, and put it through a speaker?

If the sound that we hear from a black hole can only be heard in the presents of an electronic device then is it fair to say the black hole isn’t making a sound, regardless of whether there is someone to hear it or not?

It makes me think of the question, “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Personally, I would say no. The falling tree needs a medium (air) for a pressure wave to travel through, which may or may not be considered sound in itself. I would have thought that pressure waves need an eardrum for that pressure wave to be interpreted as “sound”? Without that ‘devise’ the ear, there is no sound?
 
Last edited:
Magna-Carta said:
It makes me think of the question, “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Click to expand...
That was the exact thought that made me respond to the thread in the first place, and I said I wouldn't debate it, but to go in another direction, theoretical physicists said at one time that the gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that sucks everything in it's vicinity into it. Later I learned, or was at least told, that this is not true, and that black holes more or less belch out material from time to time. Not like old chairs and TV sets or actual matter as we usually think of, but radiation and possibly sub atomic particles, and in massive quantities.
 
JustDave said:
That was the exact thought that made me respond to the thread in the first place, and I said I wouldn't debate it, but to go in another direction, theoretical physicists said at one time that the gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that sucks everything in it's vicinity into it. Later I learned, or was at least told, that this is not true, and that black holes more or less belch out material from time to time. Not like old chairs and TV sets or actual matter as we usually think of, but radiation and possibly sub atomic particles, and in massive quantities.
Click to expand...

My limited knowledge seems to align with yours. In that I believed from what I understood from many different sources that the gravitational pull is so strong that it pulls everything into it. Or perhaps not 'pulls' as such, but the mass of a black hole is so great that it 'distorts' space/time around it in a way that causes matter to "fall" into it? Including the distortion being so great that even light falls into it from which there is no escape?

Then relatively recently I too learned that at times they also belch out material in long jets. Those jets being at right angles to the fast rotational spin of the black hole. Naturally, I wondered what forces inside or even around a black hole can be so strong that it overcomes the immense force of gravity that light is said not to escape from.

Black-Hole.jpg
 
Last edited:
Magna-Carta said:
My limited knowledge seems to align with yours. In that I believed from what I understood from many different sources that the gravitational pull is so strong that it pulls everything into it. Or perhaps not 'pulls' as such, but the mass of a black hole is so great that it 'distorts' space/time around it in a way that causes matter to "fall" into it? Including the distortion being so great that even light falls into it from which there is no escape?

Then relatively recently I too learned that at times they also belch out material in long jets. Those jets being at right angles to the fast rotational spin of the black hole. Naturally, I wondered what forces inside or even around a black hole can be so strong that it overcomes the immense force of gravity that light is said not to escape from.

View attachment 287186
Click to expand...
Maybe the black hole has more than just a powerful pull, which is equaled by other forces that were harder to detect. I know this is not a perfect analogy, but you can't fill a balloon forever. All that stuff inside a black hole has got to go some place. Unless it's all incinerated into oblivion, which may be possible. If the universe came from nothing, why can't an opposite reaction be possible?
 


Back
Top