Sound in Space

You know the quote. “In space, no one can hear you scream.”

I was always taught that in order for sound to travel, there has to be molecules for it to travel through. In the vacuum of space there are vast areas between stars and planets where these molecules don’t exist, therefore, no sound in space.

So how is it that I am sharing with you a sound visualization of planets in our solar system? Turns out, all of this is true… to a point.

By listening for changes in the amplitude and frequency of gravitational waves, we can actually convert this to audible sound. These sounds of the solar system and beyond have been made available to the public on NASA’s sound cloud page.

For this project I created spectrograms (pictures of sound) using the following three tracks:

These are just a few of the sounds they have posted, so pop in those headphones, close your eyes and relax for a few minutes imagining yourself floating in deep space.