Earth, the solar system, and the stars are full of eerie “sounds” – if we listen in on waves in light and radio, converting those signals to sound.
NASA has assembled a playlist of unusual sounds – from electromagnetic tones to the glitchy radar echoes off Titan. And that means you can listen in for sonic inspiration, or download for sampling, remixing, and sound design.
Sure, we’re cashing in here on Halloween hype, but – they’ve got a point. These sounds really are spooky and otherworldly (well, both literally and to our ears). It’s sound design gold:
In addition to the EMF sounds, there are also some really beautiful sounds that happen in a lab on Earth – like this recording of ultra-cold liquid helium:
The materials actually largely mislabeled as Creative Commons ShareAlike – Noncommercial – most of these NASA assets are in fact public domain, and you can’t add a more restrictive license once a less restrictive one is out there. (The one restriction is that commercial projects can’t imply NASA agency endorsement.) That’s not always the case, though, as sometimes NASA shares content that is partly owned by third-party contractors. But then CC licenses are at least a minimum for this playlist.
I’m not the only person to have noticed this:
I love this so much, but don't understand why @NASA keeps sharing under BY-NC licenses. Should be PD or CC0. https://t.co/PxSo2NmzU3
— Ryan Merkley (@ryanmerkley) October 29, 2017
I’ve talked (with ESA here in Europe) about space sound before:
Feature photo: Jovian moon shadow. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt. Cue the Cat Stevens…