Have You Seen This? Space might be spookier with sound than without – KSL.com

Scientists were able to determine what space sounds like. (NASA Exoplanets via Twitter)

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

A BLACK HOLE It's 2022. Billionaire tourists are flying to space every few months. NASA is getting ready to launch a rocket to the moon. And the new James Webb Space Telescope is sending back mind-blowing images of far away space items.

But maybe space is just a little too scary.

Recently, NASA took previously inaudible sound wave data from the black hole in the Perseus galaxy and raised it up a few octaves (57 and 58 octaves to be exact) to show us what space sounds like.

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

It's hard to decide which alternative is better: the spooky, haunting ghost sounds, or eerie, empty space silence. Luckily, I don't think we'll have to decide since it's more likely we would experience silent space, if any of us nonbillionaires get to go to space, at all.

NASA does clarify in an article on its website that most of space is still a vacuum where no sound waves can travel, but some areas, like galaxy clusters, have enough gases to allow sound waves to travel. So if the sounds of this black hole (which, again, humans typically cannot hear due to the sounds actually being 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times lower than the "remix" NASA released), you'll probably be OK going to space and just hearing the ominous silence of the space vacuum!

Lisi Merkley is a news producer for KSL.com. Prior to joining KSL in May 2021, she was editor in chief of The Daily Universe at Brigham Young University, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in communications and Spanish.

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Have You Seen This? Space might be spookier with sound than without - KSL.com