Data Sonification: "Bones" of a Ghostly Cosmic Hand | NASA Chandra & IXPE
MSH 15-52 is a cloud of energized particles blown away from a dead, collapsed star. This image includes X-rays from the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, (purple) as well as Chandra (orange, green, and blue). These data have been combined with infrared data from the Dark Energy Plane Survey 2 (red and blue). In sound, the scan goes from the bottom to the top. The brightness of the Chandra data of the cloud have been converted into rough string-like sounds, while the blast wave is represented by a range of pitches of firework-type noises. The IXPE data are heard as wind-like sounds. The infrared data are mapped to musical pitches of a synthesizer sound. The light curve, or brightness over time, from the dead star’s collapsed core is heard in pulses that occur almost 7 times every second as it does in the original data.
A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. The story begins around 1,500 years ago when a giant star ran out of nuclear fuel to burn. This led to the star collapsing onto itself and forming an incredibly dense object called a neutron star.
Rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic fields are called pulsars. With today’s telescopes, astronomers use them as laboratories for extreme physics, offering high-energy conditions that cannot be replicated on Earth.
Astronomers think that the B1509 pulsar here is about 1,700 years old as measured in Earth's time-frame (referring to when events are observable at Earth) and is located about 17,000 light years away. B1509 is spinning completely around almost 7 times every second and is releasing energy into its environment at a prodigious rate—presumably because it has an intense magnetic field at its surface, estimated to be 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. B1509's nebula is 15 times wider than the Crab Nebula.
Video Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory
Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)
Duration: 32 seconds
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