5,000 Exoplanets: Listen to the Sounds of Discovery (NASA Data Sonification)

5,000 Exo­plan­ets: Lis­ten to the Sounds of Dis­cov­ery (NASA Data Sonification)



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On March 21, 2022, the num­ber of known exo­plan­ets passed 5,000 accord­ing to the NASA Exo­plan­et Archive. This ani­ma­tion and soni­fi­ca­tion tracks human­i­ty’s dis­cov­ery of the plan­ets beyond our solar sys­tem over time. Turn­ing NASA data into sounds allows users to hear the pace of dis­cov­ery, with addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion con­veyed by the notes themselves. 

As each exo­plan­et is dis­cov­ered, a cir­cle appears at its posi­tion in the sky. The size of the cir­cle indi­cates the rel­a­tive size of the plan­et’s orbit and the col­or indi­cates which plan­et detec­tion method was used to dis­cov­er it. The music is cre­at­ed by play­ing a note for each new­ly dis­cov­ered world. The pitch of the note indi­cates the rel­a­tive orbital peri­od of the plan­et. Plan­ets that take a longer time to orbit their stars are heard as low­er notes, while plan­ets that orbit more quick­ly are heard as high­er notes. 

Cred­it: NASA/J­PL-Cal­tech/M. Rus­so, A. San­tagui­da (SYSTEM Sounds)



#Exo­plan­ets #Lis­ten #Sounds #Dis­cov­ery #NASA #Data #Soni­fi­ca­tion