Sounds of Space

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yogi
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Sounds of Space

Post by yogi »

NASA is always on a mission to explore the universe around us. We mostly see the pictures of their explorations, but there are also sounds. They converted some of the radio signals to audio and compiled a whole list of eerie sounds. Listen here and be amazed: https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/spookyspacesounds
Last edited by yogi on 04 Nov 2017, 21:53, edited 2 times in total.
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Kellemora
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Re: Sounds of Space

Post by Kellemora »

That was neat Yogi!

On #21 about 1/2 the way through, you can hear someones voice. Hmmmm......
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Re: Sounds of Space

Post by yogi »

As you must know, most of those signals are digitized rf. I'm wondering what they did to extract sound from that kind of signal. The graphs accompanying the sound track suggest that they played back the amplitude of the rf signal which varied at an audio rate. It seems odd that liquid hydrogen would vary in amplitude, but I'm not a NASA scientist. In any case, I didn't see an explanation of how they derived the audio.
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Kellemora
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Re: Sounds of Space

Post by Kellemora »

Oh heck Yogi, haven't you ever taken ham radio reception of white noise from a satellite pointed skyward?

Many years ago I was part of that listening to space program. We had a program that would convert the RF to audio, with a filter to knock out the white noise. It wasn't as sophisticated as today's tools, but it was fun to listen to sometimes.
But it was nothing like what I heard on those segments you linked us to.

I had an oscilloscope I used and when I saw some spikes I would tape what I was receiving, then play it back through the audio shifter program. Most of the time those spikes were an airplane, or a reflection of ground noise off a cloud.
Listening to them was almost like listening to a dial-up modem connect, which you could tune out to hear other things, hi hi...
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yogi
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Re: Sounds of Space

Post by yogi »

Yes, I am familiar with cosmic background radiation. Much of it is in the gigahertz range, but I suppose you can look at any spectrum you care to and extract the noise. Demodulation, however, can be accomplished in many different ways, and the results would be different each time. There is amplitude demodulation which is what ham radio mostly was about. But there is also frequency modulation and phase shift modulation and NASA only knows what other ways to extract something audible from raw microwaves. My curiosity is about how those audio clips were generated. Exactly what did they do to produce something we could hear?
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Kellemora
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Re: Sounds of Space

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I'm deaf around 1200 whatever. For most of my life, this has been a blessing, because I couldn't hear little girls squeal, hi hi...

However, in today's electronics age, I cannot hear piazo crystals or the beeping most computers and devices make during an error. Friends stop by and complain about all the beeps in here that I cannot hear, hi hi...

I tried a hearing aid for awhile, hoping it would overcome some of my tinnitus, and the hearing aid I bought did shift the 1200 range down to 800 so I could hear what I was missing. This meant I heard it differently than you would hear it. But I honestly hated it.

Now that I'm older, I have problems hearing properly if I'm in a room with several people talking. I can no longer distinguish who is saying what. But I hear this is normal for most of us oldsters. Also tried a hearing aid for that, but it didn't do what I expected it to do, it just muffles everything. At the cost of those things, I decided I was much better off without them.
Now don't laugh, but I picked up a cheap pair of amplifying hearing aids for around 30 to 35 bucks to use at meetings I had to attend. Honest to goodness, they worked better than those that cost between 1500 and 2500 bucks. But then too, only one person was speaking from a podium up front on a low stage. They were not much good for any other use though.

Many moons ago, I used to put a cassette recorder microphone in plastic bag with a rock and drop it down in the lake or river from a boat. I think noises in water carry further than they do in air. I recorded the sounds of barges coming upriver we couldn't even see or hear for about another 15 minutes. Plus all the motor boats, trolling motors, and those scraping sand bars.
It was interesting to hear those things, but I wouldn't want to do it all the time, hi hi...
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Re: Sounds of Space

Post by yogi »

Hearing aides have come a long way in recent years. It's nearly impossible to design one that mimics what the human ear can do, but they seem to be getting closer. The $35 device you describe has a flat frequency response, more or less, but audiologists custom design hearing aide response much like settings an equalizer on a music system. The truth is different response curves are needed for different situations. Driving in a car, for example, is not the same as watching television, all of which is not the same as sitting in a ball park watching the game. There are now devices that have remote controls so that you can select whatever response curve that suits your situation. They are fantastic but cannot be had for less than $5000.

I probably would benefit from a hearing aide. I know a few people who have them or tried using them and only one was completely satisfied. Then again, he was a salesman for a major hearing aide company. Most people abandon their hearing aids for the same reasons you did. It's simply not natural sounding. My oldest uncle, a mechanical engineer, had a sever hearing problem but ended up using that WalMart special sound booster instead of the multi-thousand dollar custom made hearing aide. It didn't look pretty, but he could hear satisfactorily. My mom did the same thing, and I still have that device. Maybe I should dig it out some day. :mrgreen:
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Re: Sounds of Space

Post by Kellemora »

Your comments reminded me of my great-grandmother, on mom's side of the family.
She had this Hearing Horn she held up to her left ear sometimes.
Mom said she could hear a pin drop half a mile away, but used it to listen to the neighbors across the street.
I know she was just teasing, but sometimes I wonder, she always knew what us kids were up to, hi hi...
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