whether it's the crashing of galaxies into one another the emergence of a new star
or the disastrous events at the center of a black hole telescopic images have been the
bridge between us and cosmic events however when it comes to space there is more than meets the eye
scientists have informed us that there are more ways than one to learn about astronomy
welcome to Factnomenal in today's video we'll be talking about how
scientists are turning visible data from all over the universe into sounds
turning data into sound for many years astronomy has been portrayed as a visual concept the wonders
of our universe have been communicated to us through pictures taken with different telescopes
or pictures from nasa's space exploration photos have been an effective way to explore the universe
however visual media isn't the only way to learn about astronomy the technology behind sonification
was invented in 1908 however recent nasa projects have caused the phenomenon to resurge
space is a vacuum therefore sound cannot travel through space but through sonification the same
data that is a representation in the form of images can be transformed into sounds
in the words of astrophysicist matt russo sonification is the use of non-speech audio
to convey information data sonification is still in its early stages of development and so far
has been applied in different spheres of science with astronomy at the forefront data sonification
enables visually impaired people to study interstellar images and other data from space
digital images portraying cosmic events have distinct elements for example brightness and
position sonification involves translating digital images into sounds by assigning these
elements auditory characteristics like pitch and volume the translation begins from the left side
of the image and continues to the right giving auditory characteristics to different elements
along the way imagine a digital image of a galaxy being converted to sound the light of objects at
the top of the image is heard in high pitches and the volume of these sounds varies depending on how
bright the light is stars are heard as individual notes while nebula produce low pitched buzzing
sounds the loudest sounds are produced from points in the image where nebulae shine the brightest
or where black holes can be found just like that visual information is converted to sound
using sonification technology faint radio waves in space can also be converted to sound fast radio
bursts frbs are short emissions of radio waves that can be detected halfway across the galaxy
at their sources of production frbs are extremely energetic however the strength of the signal
reaching earth is incredibly low sonification can help amplify these weak signals as can be seen in
this video where nine bursts from an frb were converted into sounds whispers of the universe
data sonification is at the center of many of nasa's most recent projects in fact sonification
can be done with every data the agency has some sonified projects include the tyco supernova
the pillars of creation in the eagle nebula the bullet cluster and even the sun nasa keeps records
of these sonification projects in a library called a universe of sounds where listeners can
orally explore deep space events when we observe with telescopes events like the merging of stars
the explosion of supernovas the atmosphere of the sun etc appear to be extremely chaotic however
sonification describes these events quite uniquely in 1995 nasa used the hubble space
telescope to capture an interesting picture from a galaxy located 7 000 light years away from earth
the image called the pillars of creation portrays interstellar gases and dust in the
form of elephant trunks from the sonification of this image a combination of optical and
x-ray bands is audible the sounds produced by the image clearly depict a cosmic experience listen
moving from left to right the frequencies of the sounds are different
the bright parts of the image produce high pitched cells and the dusty parts represented
by the pillars produce low pitch sounds from the sonification of data produced by the solar
and heliospheric observatory soho we can listen as the sun's plasma flows and forms eruptions
for an environment with a temperature of up to 6 000 kelvin you'd think the sounds would be
fiercer another cosmic event the sonification project has covered is the bullet cluster the
bullet cluster consists of two galaxies colliding and is famous for being the proof of dark matter
in its sonification the blue part of the picture produces a lower pitch than the pink part the
bullet cluster sonification is perhaps the most interesting tune you'll ever hear from the cosmos
600 million light years away from our milky way there is an unusual galaxy
just a little bigger than ours called hogs object this galaxy is surrounded by a multi-colored
ring of stars and stretches over 100 000 light years across a clockwise radar scan converted
the image into sound producing one of the most melodic sounds you'd hear from space
sonification hasn't been used exclusively to analyze data millions of light years
away from earth nasa has carried out a few sonification projects within our solar system
for example in 2020 radio waves emitted from venus's ionosphere were sonified
more recently massive mars quakes from mars were sonified giving us the closest
experience we can get of rumbling on another planet beyond being a part of science where
musicians can pick up interest data sonification allows scientists to carry out cluster analysis
and study star formation in a more variable way than visual media allows due to the ability of
our ears to detect changes in frequency intensity timing and location of incoming sound sonification
can significantly increase the level of accuracy of cosmic research the cocktail party effect
since the application of data sonification in the exploration of space each universe appears to be
blurting out melodies which make one wonder how astronomers can separate the sound of a universe
of interest from the music fest going on in space this is where the cocktail party effect applies
imagine you were at a party with a lot of people and everyone seems to be speaking a language you
don't understand then suddenly a few yards away you can hear bits of a conversation happening
in your language your brain instantly tunes into that conversation and tunes out all the
noise you cannot make sense of this is called the cocktail party effect it is the ability of
the brain to focus auditory attention on one particular stimulus while filtering out others
in space exploration the limits of rle detectable stimuli have been pushed
and as a result the target stimuli appear to be faint in relation to the surrounding noisy data
to isolate the stimulus we're after the selective hearing would have to be applied each planet and
universe have a distinctive visual characteristic we know the data that can be visually represented
can also be sonified therefore these distinctive features produce sounds that can tell cosmic
objects apart artificial intelligence is a more accurate and much easier way to
navigate the number of detections possible in space even signals as weak as fast radio
bursts can be detected by a computer provided it is set with a template of the target signal
however there is a catch artificial intelligence can only detect a stimulus as far as the source
does not deviate from its normal behavior once a signal deviates from normal it is lost
beyond the cosmos data sonification has taken space exploration to a deeper level
it has helped paint a clearer picture of cosmic events and indirectly taught us more
about the rate of expansion and evolution in the universe as it is this generation has the
most information about the cosmos in history however science is all about pushing limits
so far one of the theories that the success of the sonification projects is based on
is that our ears interpret auditory information faster than our eyes interpret visible information
taking it a step further the ears can detect a much wider range of stimuli than our eyes
therefore there's much more to learn about space with sounds than pictures multi-dimensional data
analysis is a part of data sonification that scientists are exploring it involves studying the
individual properties of sound and their relation to each other consider two sounds produced with
the same frequency but from different sources say for example a trumpet and a saxophone the human
ear can distinguish between the two sounds and also identify the instrument that made each sound
data analysis ensures that the properties of sound from space timber pitchness loudness etc
are affiliated with the characteristics of their sources with more advanced technology and a little
training a person should be able to distinguish between sounds produced from sonification and
decipher their source based on the quality of the sound there are many more astronomical events that
are perfect candidates for sonification as this technology evolves many more astronomical wonders
will be heard of literally and that's a wrap on this video thank you for watching Factnomenal you