Listen To These INCREDIBLE Sounds Recorded In Space! (Part 2)

Sound of Pluto

In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft transmitted numerous images and other data from Pluto and its moons.When it launched in 2006, Pluto was still a planet, but a few months later it was downgraded to a dwarf planet and is now officially known as “asteroid number 134340”. From the detailed images it looks like Pluto's’ surface is covered with light and dark patterns suggesting glaciers like on Earth. It has a hazy blue layer which might be a similar haze to that of Saturn’s moon, Titan. It sometimes has an atmosphere, when it’s elliptical orbit takes it closer to the sun and its surface thaws. There is also a bright spot on Pluto’s surface that has been informally named the “heart” which measures 1600 km across. Pluto is one-third water, which is more than 3 times as much water as in all the Earth’s oceans. The other two-thirds is rock.

The data from charged particles, magnetic fields, and low frequency radio emissions was captured by New Horizons and converted into sound waves that we could all hear.

The New Horizons spacecraft was powered down as it travelled through the Kuiper Belt and was woken up on September 11, 2017 for its 16 month journey to MU69, an ancient object thought to be one of the early building blocks of the solar system.

Like Earth, there are several different sounds for Pluto that are mixed into one audio. Some people actually describe sounds like crying, which might be because Pluto is known as being lonely. (Since it used to be the loneliest planet, and now it’s not even that which probably makes it even more depressed!) When you listen to the audio, you might feel Pluto creates a good melody with a mix of whistling, vibrations, and maybe the sound you might hear when you pick up a shell and listen to it. Pluto tends to give off a high noise frequency during most of the audio, which gives it the sense of a musical instrument, but it might be a bit eerie.

Music of the Stars

Recently, due to stellar seismology, astronomers have been able to give us audio on the sounds of the stars. There are several different sounds of stars, and the bigger they are the louder they tend to sound. One such star that has been recorded is nicknamed Gemma by researchers at the University of Birmingham, more officially known as the KIC 11026764, my favorite name! This star tends to give off the sound of flickering, which many feel makes sense because of how the stars tend to flicker in the night sky.

The data collected over a month was filtered to remove noise outside of the range of the star’s strongest “tones”. Gemma is approximately 534 light years away but it is still part of our galaxy. Fun fact: Gemma is 1 billion years older than our own sun. Since it is larger, Gemma resonates with a deep sound like a cello more than a violin. Thanks to the Kepler telescope, scientists can now analyse the way that stars vibrate which causes them to shrink and grow in size, temperature, and brightness. The vibrations also carry a low-pitched sound which scientists have sped up 1 million times to bring the oscillations within the range of human hearing.

Sound of Mars

The sound of Mars is unlike any other sound of a planet or star. If you listen closely, you can hear what sound like metal, almost like metal scraping against something or someone waving a piece of metal like a fan. However, you may also describe this sound as banging or pounding on something. Some people, who are fans of the movie or game Silent Hill, feel the sounds of Mars would be great for the soundtrack! This might be due to the whistling of what sounds like creepy wind. The screeching sounds in the beginning are also a bit unsettling. Reportedly, the weather on Mars consists of sandstorms, winds, and dust devils which reflects in the sounds we hear. These sounds were captured by the Mars Opportunity Rover which remains active as of 2017, and has already exceeded its operating plan by almost 14 years! Sadly, Opportunity started suffering from amnesia and was failing to write data properly.