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Data Sonifications

Sonification is the process that translates data into sound.

Translating NASA Data Into Sound

There’s a new, immersive way to explore NASA’s data of our Universe. NASA has taken observational data from telescopes like NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope and others, and translated it into corresponding frequencies that can be heard by the human ear.  A team of scientists, musicians, and a member of the blind and visually impaired community worked to adapt the NASA data. The audio tracks support blind and low-vision listeners first, but are designed to be captivating to anyone who tunes in.

James Webb Space Telescope Sonifications

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Explore infrared images and data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope through sound. Listeners can enter the soundscape of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, explore the tones of the Southern Ring Nebula, and hear data from the transmission spectrum of an exoplanet.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K.Arcand (CXC/SAO), M.Russo & A.Santaguida (SYSTEM Sounds), Q.Hart & C.Blome (STScI), and C.Malec (consultant).

Hubble Space Telescope Sonifications

Hubble image of giant red nebula and smaller blue neighbor nebula (NGC 2014 and NGC 2020)
This Hubble image, titled “Cosmic Reef” because of the resemblance to an undersea world, highlights the giant red nebula (NGC 2014) and its smaller blue neighbor (NGC 2020) in a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A grouping of bright, hefty stars, each 10 to 20 times more massive than our Sun, are the centerpiece of the image. Their cosmic winds and radiation shape the surrounding gas.
NASA, ESA and STScI

Ever wondered what the music of the spheres would sound like? Hubble brings us cosmic sights, but these astronomical marvels can be experienced with other senses as well. Through data sonification, the same digital data that gets translated into images is transformed into sound.

Elements of the image, like brightness and position, are assigned pitches and volumes. No sound can travel in space, but sonifications provide a new way of experiencing and conceptualizing data. Sonifications allow the audience, including blind and visually impaired communities, to “listen” to astronomical images and explore their data.

Chandra X-ray Observatory Sonifications

A bright white center is encircled with pinks, purples and yellow colors with a black background dotted with white and blue stars.
This composite image of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant, was assembled by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum: the Very Large Array, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, the XMM-Newton Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
NASA, ESA, NRAO/AUI/NSF and G. Dubner (University of Buenos Aires)

Listen to data translated from exploded stars, areas around black holes, clusters of stars and more. 

Credit: NASA, SAO, CXC, and K.Arcand (CXC/SAO), M.Russo & A.Santaguida (SYSTEM Sounds), and C.Malec (consultant).