NASA releases eerie audio of a black hole from 250 million light years away

NASA has released an audio clip capturing sound waves from a supermassive black hole located 250 million light years away in the Perseus cluster of galaxies. To make these sounds audible, the acoustic waves were transposed up 57 and 58 octaves. This is the first instance of such sound waves being made audible for human ears.

Although sound waves exist in space, they are not naturally audible to us. In 2003, astronomers discovered acoustic waves in the gas surrounding the black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster. These waves include the lowest note ever detected by humans.

NASA’s recent effort amplified these sound waves to give an idea of how they would sound in intergalactic space. The identified lowest note is a B-flat, over 57 octaves below middle C, with a frequency of 10 million years at that pitch. Human ears can detect sounds with a frequency of up to one- twentieth of a second.

The extracted sound waves were played in an anti-clockwise direction from the Center of the black hole to make them audible in all directions at enhanced pitches of 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher than their original frequency. As with other recordings from space, the result was eerie.

The gas and plasma in the intracluster medium are denser and hotter than the intergalactic medium outside it. These conditions help regulate star formation, suggesting that sound waves could play a significant role in the evolution of galaxy clusters over time.