NASA Captured The Sounds Of A Black Hole And It's Terrifying

Space remains an enigma, and the sound of a black hole captured by a NASA observatory shows that it may just be more terrifying than we think.

The NASA Exoplanets account shared the haunting clip on Twitter. In it, one can hear the sonification of the black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster in what the agency called a "Black Hole Remix."

"The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel," the account noted in the tweet. "A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we've picked up actual sound. Here it's amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole!"

Indeed, one might even compare the creepy sounds to those of a horror movie. But it's actually not the first time that NASA shared the clip. It did so back in May just in time for Black Hole Week when it noted that the Perseus galaxy is one that "has been associated with sound" since way back in 2003.

According to the agency, what people are hearing is the sonification, or translation into sound, of the data captured by its Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

"The sound waves were extracted in radial directions, that is, outwards from the center. The signals were then resynthesized into the range of human hearing by scaling them upward by 57 and 58 octaves above their true pitch," it explained. "Another way to put this is that they are being heard 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher than their original frequency."

At the time, it also shared a sonification of the black hole in Messier 87, which was a little more majestic-sounding compared to the black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster.

In 2017, NASA also shared other sounds of space. But because it was shared in time for Halloween, the sounds were also rather spooky. For instance, it shared an eerie clip of the sounds of the Sun.

It also shared sounds of the planet Saturn as captured by the Radio Plasma Wave Science instrument just weeks before the Cassini probe plunged into the planet's atmosphere, as well as a sonification of a Hubble Deep Space image. Both of them sound rather like they could come from a creepy sci-fi movie.

Those interested may find other spooky sounds of space in NASA's SoundCloud playlist. The agency also shared other sounds of space here.

Apart from making our skin crawl, these spooky sounds of space also give us a glimpse of a rather different side of the universe.