NASA has released materials that enable users to both see and hear data captured of the famous group of galaxies known as Stephan’s Quintet.
A series of presentations of the compact galaxy group includes an image, a 3D video tour and a ‘sonification’ that translates 2D images of the quintet into sound.
Stephan’s Quintet is located 290 million lightyears away in the constellation Pegasus, in the region of sky containing the famous asterism known as the Great Square of Pegasus.
New data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope has been used by astronomers and visualisation specialists to create multiple sensory experiences.
The visual image of Stephan's Quintet contains infrared light from Webb (red, orange, yellow, green, and blue) data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red, green, and blue) and x-ray from Chandra (light blue).
The 5-minute video reveals the science behind Stephan's Quintet by giving the viewer a '3D' guided tour through the region.
The audio translation of the observatories' data releases points of data through sound.
This 'sonification' starts at the top of the image and scans downwards.
As it does so, the pitch and tone of the audio track changes to react to the data and brightness in various ways.
A synthetic glass marimba sound has been used to represent background galaxies and foreground stars captured by Webb.
Stars with diffraction spikes are represented with crash cymbals.
The five main galaxies of the quintet have been assigned smooth synthetic tones, while the x-ray data from Chandra has a string-style sound.
"The visualisation team started with the scientific observations from the various telescopes, and then applied some of the same software that Hollywood uses in their feature films to the data,” says Frank Summers of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who led the team that developed the video.
"This combination creates a cinematic learning experience, merging the intellectual and the emotional into one presentation so it has a stronger impact on the audience."
"Sonifications offer a sensory way for me to experience the scale and potency of astronomical phenomena," says Christine Malec, a member of the blind and low vision community who supports the NASA project.
"They are an invitation to blind and partially-sighted people to listen, enjoy, and then go deeper by reading to understand what exactly is being heard."
You can find out more about the project at NASA's Universe of Learning.
