Have you ever wondered what a black hole sounds like? Well, if you were wondering — or if you thought it was ominously silent — NASA has found out, and yes, black holes actually make noise.
It’s worth a moment to listen because it’s strange, eerie,
and it sounds like the perfect horror movie soundtrack, as if we’re at the end
of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
According to CNET, NASA captured the soundwaves of a black
hole more than 200 million light-years away from us. “The black hole is found
in the center of what’s known as the Perseus galaxy cluster, which is a
majestic 11 million-light-year-wide bundle of galaxies shrouded by hot gas,”
the publication states.
So, the Perseus galaxy cluster is a giant gas cloud, and
that’s how scientists were able to capture the sound of the black hole. Waves
have to vibrate through something to hear sound — but, since space is a vacuum,
there’s nothing to vibrate off, so most believe there is no sound in space, per
CNET.
The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel. 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! pic.twitter.com/RobcZs7F9e
— NASA Exoplanets (@NASAExoplanets) August 21, 2022
But all that gas around the black hole made it possible to
capture its unique sound. The black hole at Perseus can get beyond the space
sound vacuum because it’s so close to all the gas. And that’s what the
scientists were able to focus on — the hot gas ripples.
Now, our human ears can’t pick up on the sound ripples, but
NASA’s equipment can. So the scientists scaled the sound in such a way that we
could hear what a black hole sounds like.
“The [sound waves] are being heard 144 quadrillion and 288
quadrillion times higher than their original frequency,” NASA said.
NASA tweeted the sound clip of what the black hole sounds
like, scaled up for our little ears. And it’s a beautiful, haunting sound that
seems very fitting for a thriller or horror movie.
Now, of course, it’s not possible to know if this is
precisely what the black hole sounds like, since it’s so enhanced, but it’s
still really, really cool.