Chandra Release - September 16, 2021 Visual Description: Jingle, Pluck and Hum Sonifications In this latest installment of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Universe of Learning's sonification project, three distinct cosmic sources are translated into short videos with extraordinary data-based soundtracks. This involves turning the astronomical data into sounds. The first set of videos sonify Westerlund 2, a cluster of young stars approximately one to two million years old, located about 20,000 light-years from earth. The first animation features X-ray data collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. When the X-ray data are translated into a visual representation, the star cluster resembles specks of neon purple against a black background. In some areas, the stars are bright and appear far apart. In other areas, packed-in specks are both bright and dim, and therefore resemble a cloud. As the animation proceeds, an imaginary vertical line sweeps across the image from our left to our right. When the line encounters a speck, the speck glows brighter and produces an assigned bell sound. The pitch of the note indicates the speck's vertical position. A higher pitch indicates a higher vertical position. The volume relates to the brightness of the source; louder equals brighter. In the Westerlund 2 sonification, optical data from the Hubble telescope reveal the region to be thick with rich marbled clouds of gold, purple, and red, flecked with dots of blue, red, and white. In this second video, a wavy vertical line once again sweeps from left to right, activating string instruments when it encounters optical light. Flecks produce plucked notes, and clouds make a bowed note. The more diffuse the cloud, the longer the tone is sustained. Once again, the pitch is determined by vertical height. The cloud in this animation has a distinct L shape hugging the left and bottom edges of the image. When the wavy line first passes through the vertical arm of the cloud, both high and low bowed notes are played. When the wavy line passes out of the vertical arm and continues through the part of the cloud that hugs the bottom of the image, only the low notes are activated. See if you can detect this shape in the resulting soundscape! The third Westerlund 2 sonification is a composite of the X-ray animation and the optical animation. Once again, the wavy sound activation line moves from left to right. The next set of videos concerns the Tycho supernova remnant. In the final composite animation, the remnant resembles a tie-dyed, psychedelic cotton ball set against a starry sky. Its surface is a mottled mix of purples, pinks, greens, blues, and golds, with distinct tufts of color tightly packed into a fluffy-looking ball. The colors come from the X-ray rendering, each color representing a different element such as iron, silicon, and sulfur. The field of stars represents optical light from the Digitized Sky Survey. In these sonifications, the activation line is an ever-expanding ring that begins at the center of the supernova remnant and expands toward the outer edge. When a star is encountered, another thin ring expands around it, like a ripple from a raindrop landing on a calm lake. Halfway through the composite animation, the expanding activation line passes out of the supernova remnant, leaving only stars in its path. The third set of sonifications explores data from the region around the black hole in Messier 87. In X-rays from Chandra, the region around the black hole resembles a wispy dark-blue cloud, thicker at our lower left and upper center, dotted with light blue specks. In radio wave data from the Very Large Array in New Mexico, the region around the black hole resembles a brick orange cloud, thickest near our lower left and upper right. In these sonifications, the activation line moves like a hand on a clock, or the arm on a radar screen. Starting at the three o'clock position, it sweeps clockwise around the clouds in one complete rotation. Light farther from the center is higher pitched, brighter light is louder, and radio data are pitched lower than X-rays, corresponding to their frequency ranges. Here, the short, plucked sounds represent specks of X-ray light, most of which are double star systems.