The European Space Agency has published a recording based on an image from the Euclid telescope. It allows you to “hear” a symphony of interstellar dust clouds and myriads of stars and distant galaxies.
The region of active star formation M78, located at a distance of 1350 light-years from the Earth, was chosen as the subject of “sonification”. It was one of the first objects photographed by the new Euclid telescope.
Flickering sounds of varying pitches and volumes represent galaxies and stars in the frame. The pitch of the sound indicates where we see the point of light in the image. Higher pitches indicate that the star or galaxy is further up in the image along the trace line.
The brightness of objects in and around M78 is reflected in the loudness of the flicker. When we hear a particularly loud flicker, the star or galaxy that Euclid has observed appears particularly bright in the image.
Underneath these ringing sounds, we hear a steady semitone consisting of two chords that represent different regions in M78. This sound increases in intensity as the trace line approaches first the brightest and then the densest regions of the nebula.
The first two deeper crescendos in this halftone indicate the two areas of the image where the most intense color is blue/purple. They are reminiscent of the two “cavities” in M78, where the powerful radiation of the newly forming stars gradually destroys the gas and dust clouds in which they were born.
The chords are amplified a third time with a slightly higher pitch, matching the red and orange colors in the image, as the sound sweeps over the densest star-forming region of the frame. This stellar nursery is hidden by a layer of dust and gas that is so thick that it obscures almost all the light from the young stars within it. Together, these different tones form a cosmic symphony, creating a very unusual audiovisual image of this corner of the Universe.
Provided by ESA
