A team of scientists turned stunning images of distant nebulae from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which captured the world in July, into music using a technique called data sonication.
The team has now made publicly available three sound images from the first broadcast of James Webb Space Telescope data.
The sounds are based on the iconic “Cosmic Abyss of the Carina Nebula” and the Southern Ring Nebula, both part of James Webb’s first data broadcast of the giant hot gas exoplanet WASP-96 b on July 13.
Every piece of music is unique and different. The striking reddish dust wall in the Carina Nebula creates a rather cosmic sound, while the Southern Ring Nebula creates an eerie movie-like listening experience.
The technology used by scientists translates data into sounds according to predetermined criteria. For example, each star in the nebulae makes a different sound based on the size, brightness, and age of the sample.
Sonication is NASA’s way of making the science of the James Webb Space Telescope accessible to blind astronomy enthusiasts as part of the Learning Universe project.
“These combinations provide a different way to experience detailed information in Web-first data,” said Quinn Hart, chief education and outreach scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, in a statement. Just as written descriptions are unique translations, it also translates visual images by encoding information such as color, brightness, star position or water absorption signatures as audio.
A team of scientists and musicians, supported by a visually impaired group member, worked with sonication to allow listeners to identify the main features of each image.
NASA has previously dubbed images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and it hopes these James Webb images will have similar appeal.
“Music taps into our emotional centers. Our goal is to make James Webb’s images and data understandable through audio, to help listeners construct images in their own minds,” said Matt Russo, a professor of physics and musician at the University of Toronto . project collaboration.
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