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Animations: Milky Way's Central Black Hole Woke Up 200 Years Ago, NASA's IXPE Finds
Sagittarius A* / Galactic Center Sonification (Composite)
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)
[Runtime: 00:23]

arrow icon Audio Only Versions

For the first time, NASA is releasing 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.


Sagittarius A* / Galactic Center Sonification (IXPE Only)
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)
[Runtime: 01:31]

arrow icon Audio Only Versions


Sagittarius A* / Galactic Center Sonification (Chandra Only)
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)
[Runtime: 00:56]





Audio Only Versions (Downloads)


Sagittarius A* / Galactic Center:
All Wavelengths: .mp3 .ogg .m4r
IXPE Only: .mp3 .ogg .m4r
Chandra Only: .mp3 .ogg .m4r



Return to: Milky Way's Central Black Hole Woke Up 200 Years Ago, NASA's IXPE Finds (June 21, 2023)