Listen to the sounds coming from the Bullet Cluster - a much-studied pair of galaxy clusters

 

Sonification Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

The Bullet Cluster, also known as 1E 0657-56, is a cluster of galaxies that provides the first direct evidence for the existence of dark matter - the mysterious unseen substance that makes up the vast majority of matter in the Universe.

The data from Chandra, showing X-rays in pink, reveals the separation of hot gas from dark matter in two colliding galaxy clusters. This phenomenon was detected through "gravitational lensing" in data from ground-based telescopes and Hubble, represented in blue.

For the unversed, gravitational lensing is a natural phenomenon that occurs when the path of light from a distant cosmic object is bent by the gravitational field of a massive object, such as a galaxy cluster. This causes the distant object's light to be distorted or magnified, producing an effect like looking through a giant magnifying glass. It is an important tool for astronomers to study the distribution of dark matter in the universe. Dark matter does not interact with light, so it cannot be directly observed, but its gravitational effects on the light from distant objects can be observed through gravitational lensing.

In this sonification, the process of converting astronomical data into sound to make it more accessible to humans, data showing dark matter are represented by the lowest frequencies, while X-rays are assigned to the highest frequencies.

In the image captured by the Hubble telescope, the galaxies, most of which are part of the cluster, are represented by mid-range frequencies. Additionally, the pitch of each layer increases from the lower part of the image to the upper part, resulting in higher tones for objects located towards the top.

Data sonification translates information collected by various NASA missions including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and more into sounds.

The data sonification project is led by the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) as part of NASA's Universe of Learning (UoL) program.