{"id":376101,"date":"2026-02-26T03:26:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=968164"},"modified":"2026-02-26T03:26:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:26:51","slug":"listen-to-this-months-planetary-parade-with-nasas-chandra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=376101","title":{"rendered":"Listen to This Month\u2019s \u2018Planetary Parade\u2019 With NASA\u2019s Chandra"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tListen to This Month\u2019s \u2018Planetary Parade\u2019 With NASA\u2019s Chandra\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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In late February, people in the Northern Hemisphere can look up for a special sight : Six planets will all be visible from clear and dark night skies. New sonifications from NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory released [day of week] will help commemorate this latest \u201cplanetary parade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the planets in our solar system travel around the Sun in the same plane (known as the ecliptic), they will sometimes appear bunched together in the sky when their orbits find them on the same side of the Sun at the same time. When this happens, it looks like the planets have roughly formed a line from our vantage point on Earth.<\/p>\n

In Chandra\u2019s sonifications, which translate astronomical data into sound, three of the planets that will be on display \u2013 Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus \u2013 can be seen and heard in ways that they cannot from Earth.<\/p>\n

While Chandra is best known for its X-ray insight into black holes and other extreme objects, the telescope has also played an important role in the exploration of our solar system. The Sun gives off X-rays that travel out into the solar system and can be reflected by planets, moons, and other bodies. This gives astronomers a unique window into certain physics that cannot be discovered through other kinds of telescopes.<\/p>\n

The sonification of Jupiter combines X-ray data from Chandra with an infrared image from NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope. Woodwind sounds reveal Chandra\u2019s X-ray data, including emission from the planet\u2019s auroras. More instruments join in to represent the planet\u2019s complex cloud layers. Next, through the combination of an optical image from NASA\u2019s Cassini mission and X-rays from Chandra, listeners can experience Saturn like never before. A siren-like sound follows the arc of the rings, and different tones of synthesizers play as the scan passes the planet itself. Finally, listeners can hear the ice giant Uranus through the data collected by Chandra and the W.M. Keck Observatory. The data in this sonification reflects the amount of light detected from the planet and the orientation of its ring.<\/p>\n

The process of creating a sonification preserves the integrity of the data, which arrives on Earth as a series of ones and zeroes (binary code), and shifts it into a form that can be processed through hearing. Sonifications expand options for people to explore what telescopes discover in space, an example of NASA\u2019s ongoing commitment to share its data as widely as possible.<\/p>\n

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