If a black hole rips open in space destroying everything near it, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? According to new audio from NASA, the answer is yes.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration released the chilling audio from a black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster on May 4 as part of the agency's Black Hole Week.
The cluster of galaxies is located 240 million light-years from Earth, and in total, the black hole is 11 million light-years across.
To obtain the audio clip, NASA astronomers recorded the pressure waves sent from the black hole in clusters of hot gas, which the human ear can not hear in their original form. The waves have now been scaled up by 58 octaves to make them audible.
Once the waves are bumped up, the noise is comparable to the wails of a haunted house or the calls from a pod of whales.
The process of making the waves audible is unlike anything that astronomers have done before, according to NASA's press release.
"[The sound waves] are being heard 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion times higher than their original frequency," the release said.
NASA has also released sounds from another black hole located in Messier 87, which has more of a salon waiting room sound and less of a ghost calling from beyond.
The noise from the black holes also comes after the global research team, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, released the first image of a black hole located at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Astronomers can now check one more box of the many they have empty on the mystery behind black holes.
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