Thanks to NASA, you can now hear what a black hole sounds like

Space is usually associated with a vast nothingness, personified by the lack of sound. But that's not the case, says NASA. It is possible to hear sounds in space and in this case, the sounds of a black hole.

Originally released during NASA's Black Hole week (May 2 to May 6, 2022), the video features sounds from the Black Hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster.



But how is there sound in space? Isn't it a vacuum?

That's a misconception, says the space agency.

"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!" said a tweet.

But, just picking up the raw sounds isn't enough to make it audible, because the base sound is 57 octaves below middle C — caused by pressure waves sent out by the black hole — and has to be mixed with other sounds to be heard by the human ear.

NASA had to scale the waves up by 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher from their original frequency. These were waves captured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, visible in X-ray, which corresponded to inaudible sounds.