NASA has just released three new sonifications that let you hear what the infamous cosmic hand and other galaxies sound like. Put simply, this refers to the process of translating data into sounds, and in the case of telescopes, scientific data is collected from space as digital signals that are commonly turned into visual imagery.
Sonification then takes this data through another step of mapping the information into sound. First up, we have the cosmic hand, or MSH 11-52, a supernova remnant that left behind a spectacular cloud of energized particles resembling the shape of a human hand, as seen in data from Chandra, NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), and ground-based optical data.
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Sonifications add a new dimension to stunning space imagery, and make those images accessible to the blind and low-vision community for the first time. I was honored to help tell the story of how Dr. Arcand and the System Sounds team make these unique sonic experiences and the broad impact those sonifications have had,” said Liz Landau, who leads multimedia efforts for NASA’s Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.
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