National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently posted a video of the sonification of a planetary nebula captured by the Hubble Telescope. The video has garnered numerous reactions from netizens online on Twitter and Instagram.
IT'S THE SCREAMING EYE!!!
😱😱😱😱😱😱
— Kugel (@KugelerdRemake) November 9, 2020
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s account posted the video of the Helix Nebula. The Helix Nebula is 655 light-years away from the Earth and 3 light-years across.
The Hubble Telescope is a space-based observatory. The space shuttle Discovery and launched and deployed the Hubble Telescope in 1990. Over 30 years, it has provided more than 1.4 million observations including watching a comet collide with Jupiter and the discovery of Pluto’s moons.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided the sonification videos of various other areas they have discovered in space. They include the Twin Galaxies AM 2026-424, Cosmic Reef, Lensing Galaxy Cluster, etc. Their lists of sonification videos are available on their official website. Sonification is the process of converting data into sound. They assign pitches and volumes to the elements of an image such as brightness and position. Nebulas are giant clouds of dust and gas in space. They are either formed from the explosion of a dying star or are regions in space where new stars and starting to form.
NASA has teamed up with System Sounds, a sci-art outreach project that translates the rhythm and harmony of the cosmos into music and sound. System Sounds have also worked with NASA’s Hubble Telescope to create videos, interactive apps, and public exhibits that inspire, educate, and make astronomy more accessible to the visually impaired.
The video from Hubble Telescope scares Netizens
They have also mentioned in the post that they assign lower pitches to the red light and higher pitches to the blue light. They also said that while there is no sound in space, data like this helps them in conceptualizing the data in an auditory way.
The Hubble Telescope post has garnered reactions from several social media users. Many people were terrified by the sound while some were fascinated by it. The process of sonification also made a lot of people curious. Many people have compared the sound to that of a screaming woman. Others have called it “Terrifyingly beautiful”. The image of the nebula also fascinated a lot of social media users.
Here are some of the reactions on Twitter:
That is absolutely terrifying,but in a cool way!
— Jim Drummen (@jimdrummen48) November 9, 2020
Why is this called the Helix Nebula rather than the Horror Eyeball Nebula? The people are curious (they're not).
— Barper Farper (@Andyparticule) November 9, 2020
Why is the terrifying space eye screaming?
— KellyO (@KellyOC2323) November 9, 2020
the eye of sauron, now with sound.
— Gabriel Pettier Ⓥ (@tshirtman) November 9, 2020
That looks like a spiritual eye.
— Christopher Blankenship (@Christo90001685) November 9, 2020
Instagram users also reacted to the video. Furthermore, they have said that the shape of the nebula which resembled an eye has fascinated them. The sound of sonification also scared a lot of netizens.
