Audio Only Versions

Video Description:

New sonifications map a near-infrared image of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, captured by NASA’s Webb Telescope, to a symphony of sounds. Musicians assigned unique notes to the semi-transparent, gauzy regions and very dense areas of gas and dust in the nebula, culminating in a buzzing soundscape.

The sonification scans the image from left to right. The new sounds were also adapted to a video, allowing sighted viewers to watch as a vertical line moves across the frame.

The soundtrack is vibrant and full, representing the detail in this gigantic, gaseous cavity that has the appearance of a mountain range. The Carina Nebula is a large cloud of gas and dust where stars are forming or have already formed.

The gas and dust in the top half of the image are represented in blue hues and windy, drone-like sounds. The bottom half of the image, represented in ruddy shades of orange and red, has a clearer, more melodic composition.

Brighter light in the image is louder. The vertical position of light also dictates the frequency of sound. For example, bright light near the top of the image sounds loud and high, but bright light near the middle is loud and lower pitched. Dimmer, dust-obscured areas that appear lower in the image are represented by lower frequencies and clearer, undistorted notes.

The separate tracks below more easily pick out the meandering melodic line that represents the nebula’s “mountain range” as it rises and falls in the image, through the center of the frame, from left to right. This jagged line between denser and thinner areas of gas and dust is the arc of the sonification’s melody. All stars are represented by a combination of pitches and processed piano notes, but the brightest stars with longer diffraction spikes also carry crashes and clangs from cymbals.

Several files appear below for download: The first represents the entire image. The second only includes sounds from the top portion of the image, and the third file only includes sounds from the bottom half of the image. Listen to the second and third files to discern the “mountain top” feature in the image. A fourth file only plays the notes that represent stars. Listen to all of the tracks for a more complex understanding of how sounds were adapted to Webb’s image of the Cosmic Cliffs.

This sonification does not represent sounds recorded in space. Two musicians mapped the telescope’s data to sound, carefully composing music to accurately represent details the team would like listeners to focus on. In a way, this sonification is like modern dance or an impressionist painting – it converts Webb’s image to a new medium to engage and inspire listeners.

Explore Webb’s image of the Cosmic Cliffs, including its full text description, in more detail.

Audio Only Versions

Video Description:

NASA’s Webb Telescope uncovered two views of the Southern Ring Nebula — in near-infrared light (at left) and mid-infrared light (at right) — and each has been adapted to sound.

Two stars orbit one another at the center of this planetary nebula. The smaller, fainter red star in the mid-infrared image at right is at the end of its lifetime — it has puffed off layers of gas and dust for thousands of years. Its companion, the brighter, larger star in both images, has stirred up those ejections. Now, listeners can hear the stars and surrounding shells of material in each image clearly.

In this sonification, the colors in the images were mapped to pitches of sound — frequencies of light converted directly to frequencies of sound. Near-infrared light is represented by a higher range of frequencies at the beginning of the track. Mid-way through, the notes change, becoming lower overall to reflect that mid-infrared includes longer wavelengths of light.

Listen carefully at 15 seconds and 44 seconds. These notes align with the centers of the near- and mid-infrared images, where the stars at the center of the “action” appear. In the near-infrared image that begins the track, only one star is heard clearly, with a louder clang. In the second half of the track, listeners will hear a low note just before a higher note, which denotes that two stars were detected in mid-infrared light. The lower note represents the redder star that created this nebula, and the second is the star that appears brighter and larger.

This sonification does not represent sounds recorded in space. Two musicians mapped the telescope’s data to sound, carefully composing music that represents near- and mid-infrared light, specifically to hear their contrasts. In a way, this sonification is like modern dance or an abstract painting — it converts two of Webb’s images into a new medium to engage and inspire listeners.

Explore Webb’s image of the Southern Ring Nebula, including its full text description, in more detail.

Audio Only Version

Video Description:

NASA’s Webb Telescope observed the atmospheric characteristics of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b — which contains clear signatures of water — and the resulting transmission spectrum’s individual data points were translated into sound.

The sonification scans the spectrum from left to right. From bottom to top, the y-axis ranges from less to more light blocked. The x-axis ranges from 0.6 microns on the left to 2.8 microns on the right. The pitches of each data point correspond to the frequencies of light each point represents. Longer wavelengths of light have lower frequencies and are heard as lower pitches. The volume indicates the amount of light detected in each data point. The new sounds were also adapted to a video, allowing sighted viewers to watch the progression as the vertical line moves across the graph, ringing out a musical note for each data point.

The four water signatures are represented by the sound of water droplets falling. These sounds simplify the data — water is detected as a signature that has multiple data points. The sounds align only to the highest points in the data.

This sonification does not represent sounds recorded in space. Two musicians converted Webb’s transmission spectrum to musical pitches to help listeners hear its data.

Explore Webb’s transmission spectrum of hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b in more detail, including its full text description and data download.