Chandra X-ray Observatory | Data Sonification: Sagittarius A* Light Echo (X-ray Composite) @ChandraXray | Uploaded 1 year ago | Updated 3 hours ago
For the first time, NASA released a sonification simultaneously with news results associated with two of its telescopes, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The data cover the region near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, is barely seen in the lower right-hand of the visual image that contains X-ray data from IXPE (red-orange) and Chandra (purple). In the sonification of these data, the cursor begins at Sagittarius A* and moves out as a growing circle toward the center of the image. As it encounters IXPE data, the volume of the notes changes according to the brightness of the X-rays. The brighter the Chandra data, the higher the musical pitch and vice versa. When the cursor travels over a large patch of X-rays both from Chandra and IXPE in the center of the image, a rushing sound is heard. This region is where scientists find a “light echo,” a high-energy relic left behind from an eruption from Sagittarius A* about 200 years ago.
For more information, visit: https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2023/gcenter/
For the first time, NASA released a sonification simultaneously with news results associated with two of its telescopes, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The data cover the region near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, is barely seen in the lower right-hand of the visual image that contains X-ray data from IXPE (red-orange) and Chandra (purple). In the sonification of these data, the cursor begins at Sagittarius A* and moves out as a growing circle toward the center of the image. As it encounters IXPE data, the volume of the notes changes according to the brightness of the X-rays. The brighter the Chandra data, the higher the musical pitch and vice versa. When the cursor travels over a large patch of X-rays both from Chandra and IXPE in the center of the image, a rushing sound is heard. This region is where scientists find a “light echo,” a high-energy relic left behind from an eruption from Sagittarius A* about 200 years ago.
For more information, visit: https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2023/gcenter/
