The Songs of the Stars
NASA has created a page on their site dedicated to astral sounds, taking the images capture by the Hubble Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and others, and turning them into sound.
“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. Each translation below begins on the left side of the image and moves to the right. 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.”
What a clever and wonderful way to expand these amazing images into a new medium that increases their accessibility!
[Image description: A photo of the Twin Galaxies AM 2026-424 star system, a collection of blue stars in an elongated circle, with a few very bright white stars scattered among them.]
