NASA released an audio recording of the sound from a black hole, and it has launched a debate about whether the sound is creepy or beautiful.
People who’ve listened to the audio clip on Twitter say the sound is both “creepy” and “ethereally beautiful,” according to the Washington Post.
Opinion writer, Skylar Baker-Jordan, wrote in response to the NASA audio that she found the sound to be soothing.
Another response to the audio written by technology group, Quantum Techs, described the sound as “ghostly alien moans and wails.”
The remixed sonification, which is the translation of astronomical data into sound, of the black hole was tweeted by the U.S. space agency from a black hole in the center of a galaxy cluster named Perseus, according to the Washington Post. This cluster resides about 240 million light-years away from Earth.
The clip of the eerie sound went viral and left people shocked that there was sound to record in the first place. NASA said in their tweet that the popular idea that there is no sound in space is actually a misconception — as we can hear from these new black hole wails.
USA Today reported that the agency, NASA Exoplanets, tweeted the 34-second clip and restated that there is sound in space. The team further elaborated in their tweet writing, “a galaxy cluster has so much gas that we’ve picked up actual sound. Here it’s amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole!”
The clip was first released in early May to celebrate NASA’s Black Hole Week; however, the tweet mentioned above really launched the discussion regarding black holes which resulted in the clip receiving more than 13 million views.
NASA reports that since 2003, the black hole in the center of the Perseus galaxy has had an association with sound. “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,” NASA wrote in their initial statement when they released the clip.
The sonifications were discovered and led by the Chandra X-ray Center. These discoveries were also included as part of NASA’s Universe of Learning program with additional support from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope/Goddard Space Flight Center.