Black holes are certainly one of the greatest mysteries in the universe but scientists at NASA are proud to announce that they’ve just figured out what one sounds like.
In a 34-second audio clip that NASA tweeted out to their followers on Sunday, they’ve somehow managed to capture the sound of a black hole located 240 million light-years away.
“The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel,” the agency said in a post on its NASA Exoplanets Twitter page.“A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we’ve picked up actual sound,” they wrote. “Here it’s amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole!”
The Twitter post quickly went viral reaching more than 15.4 million views, 111 thousand retweets, and almost 500 thousand likes.
Many people who listened to the audio clip commented on it with some saying it’s a beautiful harmonizing song, while others think it’s eery and the sound of evil–but you’ll have to be the judge of it.
“I’m not religious, but I’m starting to think that those souls sent to Hell actually end up in a black hole,” one user wrote on Twitter. “Sound ON to be horrified.”
Another wrote, “Everyone keeps talking about how scary this sounds but genuinely to me it just sounds like the song it makes. Everything vibrates and has a hum to it, she’s just singing to us.”
The black hole is said to be located at the center of the Perseus galaxy, according to NASA. They’ve actually known about the black hole producing sound but now is the first time actually getting to hear what it sounds like.
The agency said in a news release back in May that the area is filled with sound after pressure waves sent out by the black hole “caused ripples in the cluster’s hot gas that could be translated into a note.”
The only problem is the human ear can not pick up the sound by itself so they were able to use technology to interpret what the noise sounds like.
“Another way to put this,” NASA said of increasing the octave of the black hole signals, “is that they are being heard 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher than their original frequency.”
Listen To The Sound Of The Black Hole Below
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