Hearing Black Hole Winds

This is a press-release audio-visual associated with the article:

"Inspecting spectra with sound: proof-of-concept & extension to datacubes", J. Trayford, C.M. Harrison, R.C. Hinz, M. Kavanagh Blatt, S. Dougherty, and A. Girdhar, RASTI, 2, 387 (2023),

The original press release is here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2023/06/sonification/

The audio-visual is designed to show how using a new technique, astronomers can now use their ears to understand how the gas is moving inside galaxies. In this case we are listening to a specific frequency emitted by Hydrogen, which is shifted by the high-speed motion of the gas. In the central parts the sound is very “windy”, due to a powerful supermassive black hole causing a strong wind. The rest of the gas is rotating, which sounds like higher notes for the parts moving away from and lower notes for the parts moving towards us.

The sonification was produced using the code 'STRAUSS' (Trayford & Harrison, 28th Proceedings of the International Community of Auditory Displays (ICAD2023), p249-256, 2023), which is available on github: https://github.com/james-trayford/strauss

The specific technique used is described in Trayford et al., RASTI, 2, 387 (2023).