The idea of moving ever closer to the stars is a tantalizing prospect for humanity. One day, we hope to ascend into the stars and expand our race onto other planets. Right now, though, we can barely even listen in on the distant universe. However, a new technology that has been released could play a role in helping to overcome that limitation. Indeed, this new tech allows us to listen in on Sagittarius A*.
This new system, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, unsurprisingly belongs to NASA. It can take in masses of data taken from the cosmos and then turn them into sounds. So, the supermassive black hole that is Sagittarius A* could not be listened to. It sits within the center of the Milky Way and has undergone the ‘sonification’ process to essentially allow us to listen in on it.
This process is carried out by using a scanner system that is akin to radar. Starting from a clockwise start, this allows a listener to essentially hear the data being collected in the form of a 3D sound image. This is very interesting, as the closer we get to the central point of the black hole the higher the emission becomes. The quicker the frequency rises.
This supermassive black hole is around 27,000 light years away from our Earth and is estimated to have a mass that can reach around 4.1 million times the mass of our Sun. That is incredible, and the work that has been put into learning this mass by Reinhard
Genzel and Andrea Ghez have seen them win a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work and astuteness.
The universe is a confusing place, and the technology we use to learn more about it will become increasingly important in the future. For now, though, we are ever closer to being able to understand key concepts about our universe that might have previously passed us by.