The Sound of the Universe

Eight sonifications: the Sun's oscillation, the planets' cycles, a star's light, a solar flare, pulsars, a gravitational wave, a galaxy's image and the path of light. Each part was made from open data or measured numbers with a stated mapping; none is a recording from space. There is no claim of any effect.

Why this order? The first stage is the Solar System: the Sun's surface oscillation with its mean period of 300 seconds, at real speed, and the orbital periods of seven planets on a scale where one Earth year is six seconds. The second stage is the stars: RR Lyrae's 0.567-day cycle in four seconds, the Sun's flare of 3 October 2024 from four hours to eight minutes, and five pulsars at real speed, slowed or as an audible pitch. The third stage is the distant universe: GW150914's 0.2-second chirp at four slownesses, the image of the Whirlpool Galaxy from left to right, and light's path of 1.3 seconds to the Moon and 8 minutes 20 seconds from the Sun. In every part the data, the scale and the mapping are stated. Pulses come at most 1.4 times a second; faster ones were slowed or are heard as tones.

0/8 stops completed

3 stages, 8 sound stops; a filled circle is a stop you have listened to.

Stop 01/08 · I The Solar System

The Sun's Pulse

10 minEvidence level S: Soundscape, no claim

The Sun's five-minute surface oscillation.

Parts

Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails
Evidence level S: Soundscape, no claimDetails

Parts are not locked; progress stays on this device. The parts are listening practice with no claim of any effect. You can see how each session was made in its details.

Sources

The explanations in the parts rest on these sources; they make no claim of any effect. The citations were checked against Crossref, PubMed or the publisher's record.

Observations of the Sun's surface oscillation with a mean period of 300 seconds.
Noyes RW. Observations of oscillatory motions in the solar atmosphere. California Institute of Technology; 1963. doi:10.7907/31J4-0X44
The planets' orbital periods.
Williams DR. Planetary Fact Sheet. NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive; 2025.
The Kepler mission that measured RR Lyrae's light curve.
Borucki WJ, Koch D, Basri G, Batalha N, et al. Kepler Planet-Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results. Science. 2010;327(5968):977-980. doi:10.1126/science.1185402 PMID 20056856
The X-ray record of the 3 October 2024 flare.
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). GOES-16 XRS Level 2 one-minute averages, 3 October 2024. NOAA NCEI; 2024.
The ATNF catalogue from which the pulsar periods were read.
Manchester RN, Hobbs GB, Teoh A, Hobbs M. The Australia Telescope National Facility Pulsar Catalogue. Astron J. 2005;129(4):1993-2006. doi:10.1086/428488
The discovery paper of GW150914.
Abbott BP, Abbott R, Abbott TD, Abernathy MR, et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration). Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger. Phys Rev Lett. 2016;116(6):061102. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102 PMID 26918975
The open data of the gravitational-wave detectors.
Abbott R, Abbott TD, Abraham S, Acernese F, et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration). Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. SoftwareX. 2021;13:100658. doi:10.1016/j.softx.2021.100658
The scanned image of the Whirlpool Galaxy.
NASA, ESA, Beckwith S (STScI), Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Out of this whirl: The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and companion galaxy. ESA/Hubble; 2005.
Light travel times to the Moon, the Sun, Mars and Neptune.
NASA Science. Voyager 1: What Is a Light-Day. NASA; 2026.