Black Hole Strikes Deepest Musical Note Ever Heard

Science.com ^ | September 9, 2003 | Robert Roy Britt

[HIDEK6]

Astronomers have detected the deepest note ever generated in the cosmos, a B-flat flying through space like a ripple on an invisible pond. No human will actually hear the note, because it is 57 octaves below the keys in the middle of a piano.

The detection was made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and announced at a press conference today.

The note strikes an important chord with astronomers, who say it may help them understand how the universe's largest structures, called galaxy clusters, evolve. The sound waves appear to be heating gas in the Perseus galaxy cluster, some 250 million light-years away, potentially solving a longstanding mystery about why the gas surrounding this cluster and others does not chill out as existing theory predicts.

The gas is apparently dancing excitedly to the eons-long drone of a deep B-flat.

Black hole music

Astronomers were not surprised to find the supermassive black hole making a strong sub-bass sound. Though these greatest known matter sinks are by nature dark and invisible, they create bright and chaotic environments in which many forms of radiation -- from radio waves to visible light to X-rays -- have been recorded. These electromagnetic waves all travel at the speed of light.

Sound waves are similar, but they travel far more slowly and are more physical in nature. Sound you hear, for example, can be produced by the visible compression and expansion of a stereo speaker. The waves physically compress the stuff through which they move, be it air, water, or hot interstellar gas.

Other studies have shown that the riotous activity around black holes -- where gas is accelerated to nearly light-speed -- produces many notes that are, all together, much like music. Collectively, the cosmos produce, scientists believe, a cacophonic symphony of inaudible tunes.

Musical production appears to be ubiquitous in Nature. Scientists often call it flicker noise, and it has also been detected in the X-ray outputs of magnetic fields within our solar system. Even Earth hums its own tune. Musical analogies are found in everything from seascapes to brainwaves.

Way out of range

The 53 hours of Chandra observations revealed a note that is more than a million billion times deeper than what you can hear.

"We have observed the prodigious amounts of light and heat created by black holes," said Andrew Fabian of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, England, and leader of the study. "Now we have detected the sound."

"The Perseus sound waves are much more than just an interesting form of black hole acoustics," said Fabian's colleague Steve Allen. "These sound waves may be the key in figuring out how galaxy clusters grow."

Scientists had previously observed large amounts of hot gas infusing clusters. Given what's known, the gas should cool over time, however. Cooler gas would create areas of lower pressure near the center of a cluster, causing fringe gas to fall inward. In the process, trillions of stars would form.

This isn't what astronomers see when they look at clusters, though.

The Perseus cluster is the brightest known in X-rays, making it a good target for study. It has two large, bubble-shaped cavities that extend away from a central black hole. The cavities are formed by jets of material ejected from the black hole's surroundings, and the jets have been suspected of heating the outlying gas. But scientists couldn't see how.

A special image-processing technique was used to bring out subtle changes in brightness that revealed the presence of ripples -- the sound waves.

Fabian and Allen figure the sound waves, observed spreading out from the cavities, heat the gas. The amount of energy involved is staggering, equal to what would be produced if 100 million stars exploded.

A single, long-sounding note is produced by a sound wave in which the waves are the same size and shape continuously. The newfound note has been sounding, the researchers say, for about 2.5 billion years.

[Maceman]

Without checking it out for myself, I’ll tell you how to do it - an octave is a doubling of frequency. So take the frequency of the “middle B flat” and double it 40 times (times 2 to the 40th power) and compare that to the frequency of yellow.

Of course you are correct. But at the time the comment was made, nobody -- including myself -- felt like doing the math, nor looking up the frequency of yellow. It's been 34 years since that class, so maybe I'll get around to doing it now. (Probably not though.)

[count-your-change]

Thanks!

[wareagle7295]

G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C...G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C...G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C...G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C...G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C...G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C

[Agamemnon]

Astronomers were not surprised to find the supermassive black hole making a strong sub-bass sound. Though these greatest known matter sinks are by nature dark and invisible, they create bright and chaotic environments in which many forms of radiation -- from radio waves to visible light to X-rays -- have been recorded. These electromagnetic waves all travel at the speed of light.

They travel at the speed of light in Dark Matter, which is supposed to comprise 99% of the visible universe (hence the only universe we can even attempt to measure).

The greatest distance over which we have received a man-initiated radio transmission of any sort takes ~ 11 hours to receive from the Voyager 2 space craft. The measured distance of estimated travel at this point is a mere <0.0012 light years.

That's like saying if 500 miles is equivalent to the range of one light year, and that since I travel at 60 MPH for a little more than 1/2 mile I will maintain 60 MPH for the next 500 miles.

This of course must first assume that all travel and speed goes perfectly and completely unimpeded in the grossly imperfect physical world in which travel takes place for the next 499.5 miles. And in terms of space distance travel completely without a view ahead or predictable path.

Multiply that level of uncertainty by the presumed thousands and by some estimates millions or billions of light years we are extrapolating this model out to, and one will be witness to a steeply decreasing confidence level one may credibly apply to any estimates derived from such vanishingly miniscule data points.

And some who study science use these same extrapolations and calculations, based on the speed of light in a vacuum (a "sterile," hence barely representative -- painly unrepresentative -- environment) to estimate intergalactic distances and the age of the universe itself.

Is it logical to make presumptions based upon such weakly measurable real data?

What is the speed of light in Dark Matter which is thousands of presumed light years in distance, and how do you know? Or maybe the real question is: can you credibly know?

What is the speed of light as it tries to escape from the black hole which in theory is swallowing it?

Spunkets says: "Re: The entire assembly appears to have a 2.5Bly radius."

ml/nj says: "And how do you know this?"

Spunkets replies: "The NASA guys said so."

With the knowledge that NASA has also been promulgating the "science" of AGW, is NASA a credible source for an unbiased, objective study of "science?"

My opinion is that NASA couldn't possibly estimate such a distance with any amount of accuracy due to the uncertain impact of recognized/perceived/known yet completely incomprehensible forces.

The Creator of the Universe is certainly in the position of being able to mock what man presumes is his "elevated" knowledge.

As quoted by metmom:

Job 38:6-8

6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-

7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,...."

If Job were alive today Job might have even been Divinely inspired to write something along the lines of what I'll just call: "Job 36:8-1/2"

8-1/2 "What is Dark Matter, yea, and from whence ariseth Black Holes? At what speed hath God stretched out His heavens before Him? Cans't thou not tell us, O man, who thinketh himself to be so learned? Or, art thou merely a prideful dumb ass, enamoured of thine own vanities, and, yea verily, of thine own conceit?"

OK, so Job didn't write that, but the writer of Hebrews did write this:

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Hebrews 11:3).

FReegards!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the beautiful Scripture and for the ping, dear sister in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your insights, dear Agamemnon!

[Agamemnon]

The astronomical Dark Matter thing takes on a whole new significance in the light of still another passage:

I Corinthians 13:12 "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

"For now we see...": Science is based upon the study of that which may be observed. Anything else is mere specualtion.

"...through a glass....": Through a telescope. Could also apply to microscope.

"...darkly,....": coincidentally, and I suspect without benefit of consulting Scripture first, astonomers chose to call the interstellar matter that they can't see -- yet know is there -- "Dark Matter."

[celmak]

Thanks metmom!

;)

[andy58-in-nh]

A little “accidental” humor?

[Alamo-Girl]

Very interesting. Thank you, dear Agamemnon!

[metmom]

I thought it was interesting that Scripture, once again, is verified by the findings of the scientists who so often seek to deny it.

This also came to mind....

Psalms 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

[count-your-change]

??????

[reagan_fanatic]

I'll bet Bugs Bunny, er, Leopold, could coax a lower note out of someone...

[YHAOS]

metmom: While pursuing your biblical referral, my gaze chanced to fall on 38:2, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” I leave it to your imagination as to whom it was that instantly came to mind.

Otherwise, recollection may bring to mind we had a conversation not too long ago with another poster concerning the nature of the ‘doors’ that divide the waters. It may be that the mysteries of deep space have more relevance to our lives than we might think. Perhaps the Lord is trying to tell us that (among other things)?

And, friend Agamemnon: I thought your Job 38:8-1/2 to be exquisitely droll. ( ^8 }

[KosmicKitty]

Didn't Cartman find it already??

[aruanan]

“a note that is more than a million billion times deeper than what you can hear” is not a note that is “57 octaves below the keys in the middle of a piano.”

[tet68]

The newfound note has been sounding, the researchers say, for about 2.5 billion years.

Researchers find Helen Thomas fart, lowest known sound.

[aruanan]

He always smirked when he said it, so I’ll leave it to someone with a better understanding of optics to tell me if that’s really true.

He probably smirked for two reasons:

1. Bb below middle C is about 123Hz. Up an octave is doubling the Hz. So this is like that deal where someone asks you if you want a penny doubled every day for a month or $1000 but if you take the penny, you'll get over 10 million dollars. So 1 penny X 2³⁰ is around 1,073,741,824 pennies or $10,737,418. Now, start with 123Hz and double it 40 times and you'll get 123Hz X 2⁴⁰ or 3.95 X 10⁸³Hz. The frequency of one color of yellow is 5.17 X 10¹⁴. So you can see that in frequency, 123Hz raised 40 octaves far, far exceeds the frequency of the color yellow.

2. Sound and light are both measured in terms of frequency, but light is electromagnetic; sound isn't. So no matter how far up you got the sound, you wouldn't get light (well, I supposed that if you could get air molecules vibrating fast enough you could generate some light from the friction but it would happen way before you got to 3.95 X 10⁸³Hz).

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[Maceman]

Thank you for that very excellent and elegant explanation.