Hear the scariest sounds from outer space, thanks to a black hole

The unfathomable void that is outer space is silent - down to zero decibels.

This is because the particles vibrate when sound is present. In the quasi-empty zones of space, there are no (or very few) particles to vibrate, therefore no sound. On Earth, sound mainly travels to the ears through vibrating air molecules.

But what if there was a cluster of galaxies - a cluster of galaxies, if you will - so dense and filled with vast amounts of gas that envelop hundreds, even the thousands of galaxies it contains, would be enough to provide support for the sound waves to propagate?

Also read: Elon Musk's SpaceX is up and away with a new contract to launch a Japanese communications satellite< /p>

The short answer is yes, and you can listen to it below.

The central black hole in the galaxy cluster Perseus has been linked to sound since 2003. NASA said this is because astronomers discovered that pressure waves emitted by the black hole generated ripples in the heated gas of the cluster, which can be interpreted as a note that humans are unable to hear.

That is now a thing of the past. What you have just heard is the translation of astronomical data into sound. This new sonification, released by NASA in May, is the sound waves that astronomers previously identified and were extracted and made audible for the first time.

Scaling signals above their actual pitch allowed resynthesis within the range of human hearing. They are heard at frequencies that are 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher (meaning they are very quiet) than their original frequency.

"What we're listening to is basically a re-sonification, so data sonification of an actual sound wave in this cluster of galaxies where there's this supermassive black hole at the core that's kind of burp and send all these vibes, if you will,” NASA visual scientist Kimberly Arcand told NPR in May.

"And the scientists who originally looked at the data were able to figure out what the note was. And it was basically a B-flat about 57 octaves below middle C. We got so took this sound that the universe was singing about, and then we brought it back into the range of human hearing - because we certainly can't hear 57 octaves below middle C.”

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was the site used to collect the data. The observatory also synthesized the sounds of the Eagle Nebula M16 "Pillars of Creation", as well as the center of the Milky Way galaxy. You can listen to both below.

[embedded content][embedded content]Photo: Courtesy NASA/CXC/U.Wisc-Madison/S. Heinz et al.; Optical/IR: Pan-STARR

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