Astronomers have been improving their ability to image black holes for a while, but have you ever wondered what a black hole sounds like? Well, NASA has got you covered.
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00:00Astronomers have been improving their ability to image black holes for a while, with this
00:07being some of their best work to date.
00:09But have you ever wondered what a black hole sounds like?
00:12Well NASA has got you covered, as they have released this audio clip of the acoustic waves
00:16coming from the Perseus galaxy cluster.
00:24It sounds a lot like what you might imagine, eerie whirring that is decidedly cosmic.
00:29Space is a vacuum, and therefore acoustic waves can't move through, well, nothing.
00:34And that's true.
00:35However, these acoustic waves were detected moving through massive gas clouds surrounding
00:39a supermassive black hole, the one at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster.
00:44Astronomers say while this recording is wild to listen to, it's only audible because
00:51its pitch has been raised.
00:53They say that the notes that were detected are the lowest ones ever recorded in the universe.
00:58To put it in musical terms, it's 57 octaves below middle C, with a sound wave frequency
01:04of 10 million years.