National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Listen to a Black Hole

Edward Morgan of MIT has taken the X-ray data from the black hole GRS 1915+105, and translated it into audio signals, allowing us to actually listen to this object throw off its accretion disk.

• low frequency static-like noise corresponds to background X-ray
• the "skips" in sound, or lub-dubbing pulsations are the X-ray/infrared jets (not the superluminal ones) escaping from the black hole
• the high pitched whistling noises are the quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) of the escaping X-rays.

Below are links to two kinds of audio files - a Sun audio (.au) file and a wave (.wav) file.