Data Sonification: Chandra Deep Field-South (X-ray)

13,391

Data Sonification: Chandra Deep Field-South (X-ray)

Data sonification from NASA missions provides a new method to enjoy an arrangement of cosmic objects. These data sonifications translate information collected by various NASA missions — such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope — into sound. This is the deepest X-ray image ever obtained, made with over 7 million seconds of observing time with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. These data give astronomers the best glimpse yet at the growth of black holes over billions of years beginning soon after the Big Bang. The object is called the Chandra Deep Field-South, and covers a region on the sky with an area about two-thirds that of the full Moon. The colors represent different levels of X-ray energy detected by Chandra. Here the lowest-energy X-rays are red, the medium band is green, and the highest-energy X-rays observed by Chandra are blue. Each color has been mapped to corresponding sounds in low, medium and high tones. This data set contains the highest concentration of supermassive black holes ever seen, equivalent to about 5,000 objects that would fit into the area on the sky covered by the full Moon and about a billion over the entire sky. Play the sonification to listen to the location of thousands of black holes as detected in X-ray light. Sonification Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

49 sec

astronomy space telescope astrophysics science