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Sonifying the Cosmos

26:59 recording · AUTO · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

NASA turns telescope data into sound so more people can experience and analyse the cosmos.

  1. Sonification is interpretation, not literal translationArkand compares it to translating Spanish into Mandarin: you use contextual clues rather than a perfect A to B swap.
  2. Accessibility work benefits everyone, like a cut curbDesigning for blind and low vision listeners also helped sighted audiences feel a connection to the data.
  3. Sound is a journey across timeAn image delivers all the data at once, so tempo, pitch range and layering must be chosen carefully for audio.
Executive Summary AI
  • Kimberly Arkand explains that sonification is simply translating data into sound, mapping observed position, brightness and energy from Chandra, Hubble and Webb onto pitch, volume and instrument type.1:22
  • In the galactic center piece the lowest energy light is a soft piano, the near infrared and optical a violin, and the highest energy particles a glockenspiel, so listeners can tell the kinds of light apart.5:26
  • One of the most popular sonifications is the Perseus cluster, where a supermassive black hole burps pressure waves into hot gas that scientists calculated about 20 years ago to be a B-flat roughly 57 octaves below middle C, brought back up into human hearing range.8:58
  • The project was inspired by blind and low vision access, shaped by work with Dr. Wanda Diaz and collaborator Christine Malik, who has been blind since birth and said hearing the data made her feel empowered as if she had witnessed the phenomena directly.12:12
  • For the Pillars of Creation, the team scans the data left to right with vertical position controlling pitch, giving optical light a sweeping synthesized sound built from sine waves and X-ray light short pure beeps marking slightly older stars.23:46
Key Quote
“Well, sonification is just the process of translating data into sound.”
— Kimberly Arkand1:22
Key Quote
“So I think every object or every object type is pretty unique.”
— Kimberly Arkand8:08
Key Quote
“So very deep, very strong note that humans could never hope to hear.”
— Kimberly Arkand9:26