24-Sonification of Arp 140

This data sonification of Arp 140 shows a pair of interacting galaxies. The leftmost galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy known as NGC 275, and the right-side galaxy is a lenticular galaxy called NGC 274. In barred spiral galaxies, a bar of stars runs through the central bulge of the galaxy (seen here as a bright-white, vertical haze in NGC 275). Lenticular galaxies, on the other hand, are classified somewhere between elliptical and spiral galaxies, getting their name from the edge-on appearance that resembles a disk. They typically don’t have much gas and dust and are made up primarily of old stars.

Scientists sonified the data in this image, assigning pitch to color for the image as a whole (bluer light is higher, redder is lower). Pitch is mapped to brightness for the resolved stars and background galaxies, based on their apparent size – objects that appear bigger are lower, and smaller are higher in pitch. Brighter light is louder throughout the image.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Foley (University of California – Santa Cruz); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America); Sonification: SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida).