Audience
Educators, Students
Grade Levels
Grades K-4, Grades 5-8, Grades 9-12, Higher Education, Informal Education
Subject
Physical Science, Space Science, Waves, Sound, Solar System and Planets, Solar System and Stars, Telescopes
Type
Interactive Multimedia, Websites
Ever wondered what the music of the spheres would sound like? Hubble brings us cosmic sights, but these astronomical marvels can be experienced with other senses as well. Through data sonification, the same digital data that gets translated into images is transformed into sound.
Elements of the image, like brightness and position, are assigned pitches and volumes. No sound can travel in space, but sonifications provide a new way of experiencing and conceptualizing data. Sonifications allow the audience, including blind and visually impaired communities, to “listen” to astronomical images and explore their data.