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NASA Reveals Sound Waves from Supermassive Black Hole

10/26/2025

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Summary

Story summary

NASA released an audio clip of sound waves from a supermassive black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster.
The waves detected in 2003 were transposed 57 and 58 octaves higher to illustrate radial spread from center.
The original tone was a B-flat, so low it would take 10 million years to oscillate.
The work notes that sonification shows sound can exist in space and may heat the intracluster medium.

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Story summary

NASA released an audio clip of sound waves from a supermassive black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster.
The waves detected in 2003 were transposed 57 and 58 octaves higher to illustrate radial spread from center.
The original tone was a B-flat, so low it would take 10 million years to oscillate.
The work notes that sonification shows sound can exist in space and may heat the intracluster medium.