NASA's Halloween playlist features the eerie sounds of space
Is your classic Halloween music sounding a little stale? Maybe it's time to spice it up with some truly scary tracks: horrifying sounds from the void of space.
In honor of Halloween, NASA has released its own playlist filled with converted sound files showing off the interplanetary music of our cosmos. It's pretty spooky stuff.
The playlist includes radar echoes, plasma waves, and even dust smacking into a comet. Listen to the echoes, whistles, and howls from outer space for yourself to get in the scary spirit.
NASA said that the data used to create the playlist was collected by instruments on spacecraft that capture radio emissions, which scientists converted into sound waves.
Particularly haunting tracks include "Kepler: Star KIC7671081B Light Curves Waves to Sound," "Plasmaspheric Hiss," and "Jupiter Sounds 2001."
NASA explained the science behind some of the creepy noises in a press release:
Juno Captures the 'Roar' of Jupiter: NASA's Juno spacecraft has crossed the boundary of Jupiter's immense magnetic field. Juno's Waves instrument recorded the encounter with the bow shock over the course of about two hours on June 24, 2016.
Plasma Waves: Plasma waves, like the roaring ocean surf, create a rhythmic cacophony that — with the EMFISIS instrument aboard NASA’s Van Allen Probes — we can hear across space.
Saturn's Radio Emissions: Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions, which were monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth's northern and southern lights.
Sounds of Jupiter: Scientists sometimes translate radio signals into sound to better understand the signals. This approach is called "data sonification". On June 27, 1996, the Galileo spacecraft made the first flyby of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, and this audio track represents data from Galileo's Plasma Wave Experiment instrument.
Sounds of a Comet Encounter: During its Feb. 14, 2011, flyby of comet Tempel 1, an instrument on the protective shield on NASA's Stardust spacecraft was pelted by dust particles and small rocks, as can be heard in this audio track.
This Halloween, queue up the chilling sounds of space for trick or treaters, and get ready for an eerie night.
Alison Main is an intern with Real Time. She is originally from St. Louis, but she currently lives in Los Angeles, where she studies Broadcast and Digital Journalism at the University of Southern California. Alison has previously interned at CNN, both with "CNN Tonight with Don Lemon" and with the New York news bureau. The highlight of her journalism career (so far) was serving as political director for USC Annenberg Media during the 2016 election season.
