Kreed Izkhanilov
On September 9th, 2003 Change X-Ray observatory discovered actual sound waves being emitted from the resonation of a supermassive black hole near the center of the Perseus star cluster. The astronomers working at the observatory gathered this information from observing an outward ripple pattern in the clouds surrounding the black hole. The sound had thus far traveled hundreds of thousands of lightyears from the black hole, in all directions, creating this ripple pattern in the gas clouds.
Here's the full story: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/09sep_blackholesounds.htm
As for the sound, it's low ... Very low. So incredibly low that it could only be detected by the ripples formed in the gas clouds. The exact depth of the note takes the record as the lowest sound ever to be generated by any object in the universe. The 'note' resides a whopping 57 octaves below the pitch of middle-C on a normal piano. Middle-C has a frequency of 261.63Hz, and given the amount of decrease between measures, that would make the frequency of the black hole's resonation approximately 20x10-14. In long terms, that's 0.0000000000002Hz. The limit of human hearing is 20Hz. That pitch is fifty-seven octaves below Middle-C, located here:
Fifty-seven octaves is much lower than anyone could ever hope to hear, and just the thought of a note so low is mind boggling. This sound is so impossibly low and ominous that not even subsonic scanners could pick it up. Here are some images of what the rippled clouds look like, the supermassive black hole placed at the center as the globe of light
I bring this topic to GD because it's so mind-bogglingly ominous. Try to imagine a sound as low as that.
Here's the full story: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/09sep_blackholesounds.htm
As for the sound, it's low ... Very low. So incredibly low that it could only be detected by the ripples formed in the gas clouds. The exact depth of the note takes the record as the lowest sound ever to be generated by any object in the universe. The 'note' resides a whopping 57 octaves below the pitch of middle-C on a normal piano. Middle-C has a frequency of 261.63Hz, and given the amount of decrease between measures, that would make the frequency of the black hole's resonation approximately 20x10-14. In long terms, that's 0.0000000000002Hz. The limit of human hearing is 20Hz. That pitch is fifty-seven octaves below Middle-C, located here:
Fifty-seven octaves is much lower than anyone could ever hope to hear, and just the thought of a note so low is mind boggling. This sound is so impossibly low and ominous that not even subsonic scanners could pick it up. Here are some images of what the rippled clouds look like, the supermassive black hole placed at the center as the globe of light
I bring this topic to GD because it's so mind-bogglingly ominous. Try to imagine a sound as low as that.
