Yes, sound waves do so well in space. /s
“Scientists had previously observed large amounts of hot gas.”
It happens frequently.
very interesting.
When I was studying acoustics in music school thirty years ago, the prof used to say “If you play Bb below middle C, and then play it up 40 octaves higher, you’ll get the color yellow.”
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.
Too bad Les Paul died, he could have made a guitar capable of playing those notes, true genius.
very cool.
Hey, my stereo will reproduce that. The problem is the only album ever recorded that has that note is a Spinal Tap bootleg...
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.
I love B flat, its my favorite chord as well.
The cosmic Brown Note?
I’m becoming more and more convinced that earth is the only place in the universe that harbors higher forms of life. The reason is that most parts of galaxies are just far to violent to have a stable environment like we have had on earth for four billion years. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that our solar system is on the outside margin of our galaxy, with the nearest star from the sun far far away.
On Science Channel TV last night they had a simulation of galaxies spinning around a massive black hole. It looked like oatmeal going down a garbage disposal and being spit out again. There’s no way a planet like earth could survive a trip like that.
So there may be “billions and billions” of solar systems that could harbor life, but very few that could be a stable incubator for the four billions year it took man to come into the scene. Scary thought.
And B-flat-major is my next favorite key. I'll bet there's a black hole out there sending out a pure E-flat tone!
Another thing. I discovered the Circle of Fifths as a child, fooling around with the piano. I wondered where it went, in both directions. Then when I studied music seriously, I learned the answer: To infinity, in each direction. I'll betcha there's an entire Black Hole Orchestra out there playing Circle of Fifths to infinity in each direction.
And imagine other possibilities, if we have infinity and eternity as our playpen.
And some people don't think God has a sense of humor!
Or even that He exists!
What a hoot!
I had a dear employee once who had more problems than anyone could imagine--including alcoholism, homosexuality, oppressed minority status--you name it.
Once I told her a joke that was a bit--well--sacreligious. Then it occurred to me that I might have offended her.
To try to soothe possible ruffled feathers, I said: "I think God has a sense of humor, don't you?"
After thinking for a moment, she replied: "I'm depending on it."
You can see why I loved her.
I can hear 20 cps, divide that by a million billion and you'll have the frequency of that observed by Chandra, or 0.00000000002 cycles per second.
You would think they would state the actual frequency at least once in the entire freakin’ article.
I’ll be danged. Even lower than Tennessee Ernie?