Voyager Captures Sounds of Interstellar Space

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft captured these sounds of interstellar space. Voyager 1's plasma wave instrument detected the vibrations of dense interstellar plasma, or ionized gas, from October to November 2012 and April to May 2013.

The graphic shows the frequency of the waves, which indicate the density of the plasma. Colors indicate the intensity of the waves, or how "loud" they are. Red indicates the loudest waves and blue indicates the weakest.

The soundtrack reproduces the amplitude and frequency of the plasma waves as "heard" by Voyager 1. The waves detected by the instrument antennas can be simply amplified and played through a speaker. These frequencies are within the range heard by human ears.

Scientists noticed that each occurrence involved a rising tone. The dashed line indicates that the rising tones follow the same slope. This means a continuously increasing density.

When scientists extrapolated this line even further back in time (not shown), they deduced that Voyager 1 first encountered interstellar plasma in August 2012.

The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Iowa

[GrannyGamer]

My father was a sound engineer. He worked on Voyager, as well as many other programs. He's been dead for over thirty years. But I'm hearing his work, again, tonight, outside the Solar System: the first such transmission in human history.

[Mike-fgtx]

The fact that we still have contact with both of these spacecraft and are still gathering scientific data from them is an astonishing marvel of human ingenuity.

[Arai]

"When I was your age, we had to use plasma wave instruments to detect vibrations of dense interstellar plasma"

[MrSunshine]

In space, no one can hear you scream... cause space is already doing that.

[jamesslocombe]

Does anyone else find this slightly scary?
Pure brilliance, but scary, considering it's travelling to fast and so far away from us

[rontayan]

Amazing! I am lucky enough to hear the sounds of interstellar space for the first time in human history. This my small victory in existence.

[fofagery]

This is the most beautiful sound I heard in my life!, Can not stop hearing, it is the music of space, playing from billions of years, and now we can hear this beautiful music, what a achievement stunning, and the most wonderful to hear from one of what's out there whispering to us, and says, "You are not alone!"

[kwcphotography]

Wow, who knew those 50's movies that used the same sounds whenever they showed a spaceship traveling were actually using the correct ones.

[elizawright]

that classic old eerie sci-fi space sound is actually what space sounds like omg 

[hadesmcfadden]

remember folks, these waves have been "translated" into sound. 

[bradnimbus]

This thing is very interesting. I was reading up on it and apparently it can record around 69kb of data? Man back in in the 70's that was insane! 


This sound gave me a cold shiver

[oknamn]

DUDE SPACE IS THE COOLEST FUCKING THING EVER

[Corrupt]

It has triggered me how much we don't yet know about space. Just imagine everything that could be out there. That thought gives me the chills everytime.

[ucod]

Beautiful, yet haunting... the sounds of a place so far away and isolated that we cannot even comprehend it.

[MayaCursus]

THIS IS AMAZING! Nasa is my life, astronomy is all of me, so this is a really big deal for me. I think I'm crying.

[blueeyedboy]

I'm not saying it was aliens....
but it was totally aliens

[RandomGarbage]

does anyone else find this kind of calming? or am i just weird.

[maximes]

This bugs me up that people call it sounds, it's just light waves, in the radio part of the spectrum. We don't listen to space, we observe it in different wavelengths

[roserainmusic]

Technology is amazing! It's fascinating to hear something from so far away.

[Livi_Noelle]

I was a year and a half old when Voyager was launched. It did so much for me throughout my life to keep me interested in science. This makes me feel like I should turn over a new leaf in my life or something.