NASA on Soundcloud

In this episode, we sit down with Jim Rostohar, Chief Knowledge Officer for NASA's Johnson Space Center, to explore the vital role of knowledge sharing within the organization.

Developing and testing rocket propulsion systems, it’s really foundational to spaceflight and to everything that we’re trying to do with spaceflight.

The data cover the region near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, is barely seen in the lower right-hand of the visual image that contains X-ray data from IXPE (red-orange) and Chandra (purple). In the sonification of these data, the cursor begins at Sagittarius A* and moves out as a growing circle toward the center of the image. As it encounters IXPE data, the volume of the notes changes according to the brightness of the X-rays. The brighter the Chandra data, the higher the musical pitch and vice versa. When the cursor travels over a large patch of X-rays both from Chandra and IXPE in the center of the image, a rushing sound is heard. This region is where scientists find a “light echo,” a high-energy relic left behind from an eruption from Sagittarius A* about 200 years ago. NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

Messier 104 (M104 for short), located about 28 million light-years from Earth, is one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo cluster. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is angled nearly edge-on allowing a view of its bright core and spiral arms wrapped around it. Spitzer's infrared view of M104 shows a ring of dust circling the galaxy that pierces through the obscuring dust in Hubble’s optical light image. Spitzer also sees an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. The Chandra X-ray image shows hot gas in the galaxy and point sources that are a mixture of objects within M104 as well as quasars in the background. The Chandra observations show that diffuse X-ray emission extends over 60,000 light years from the center of the M104. (The galaxy itself spans 50,000 light years across.) In sonifying these data, we can listen to each type of light either separately or together. Either option begins at the top and scans toward the bottom of the image. The brightness controls the volume and the pitch, meaning the brightest sources in the image are the loudest and highest frequencies. The data from the three telescopes are mapped to different types of sounds. The X-rays from Chandra sound like a synthesizer, Spitzer’s infrared data are strings, and optical light from Hubble has bell-like tones. The core of the galaxy, its dust lanes and spiral arms, and point-like X-ray sources are all audible features in the sonification of these data.

In Stephan’s Quintet, four galaxies move around each other, held together by gravity, while a fifth galaxy sits in the frame but is actually at a much different distance. A visual image of Stephan’s Quintet contains infrared light from the James Webb Space Telescope (red, orange, yellow, green, and blue) with additional data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red, green, and blue) and X-ray light from Chandra (light blue). A sonification of these data begins at the top and scans the image downward. As the cursor moves, the pitch changes in relationship to the brightness in different ways. The background galaxies and foreground stars in the visual images Webb detects are mapped to different notes on a synthetic glass marimba. Meanwhile, stars with diffraction spikes are played as crash cymbals. The galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet themselves are heard as smoothly changing frequencies as the scan passes over them. The X-rays from Chandra, which reveal a shock wave that has superheated gas to tens of millions of degrees, are represented by a synthetic string sound

The system called R Aquarii contains two stars — a white dwarf and a red giant — in orbit around each other. In a composite visual image, Hubble data (red and blue) reveal spectacular structures that are evidence of outbursts generated by the pair of stars buried at the center of the image. X-rays from Chandra show a jet from the white dwarf banging into the material surrounding it and creating shock waves. In the sonification of R Aquarii, the piece evolves as a radar-like scan of the image, clockwise starting at the 12 o’clock position. The volume changes in proportion to the brightness of sources in Hubble’s visible light and Chandra’s X-ray image, while the distance from the center dictates the musical pitch (higher notes are farther out). The deep thuds toward the four corners are “diffraction spikes,” which are artifacts from the bright central star. Listeners can hear jets from the white dwarf as the cursor travels near the two o’clock and eight o’clock positions. The ribbon-like arcs captured by Hubble create a rising and falling melody that sounds similar to a set of singing bowls (metal bowls that produce different sounds and tones when struck with a mallet), while the Chandra data are rendered to sound more like a synthetic and windy purr. NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

NASA is certainly facing an aging workforce that has been rapidly retiring or nearing retirement, and it’s really encouraging to see the impact that this program specifically has had in developing the next generation of engineers.

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Engineering Technicians John Hood, Amy Meekham, and Mark Sloan discuss details of their work on the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer.

Los astronautas de las misiones Apolo de la NASA trajeron consigo muestras de suelo lunar, que la comunidad científica continúa analizando. Pronto, una misión robótica traerá a la Tierra muestras de un asteroide y, más adelante, iremos a buscar muestras de Marte recolectadas por nuestro robot explorador Perseverance. ¿Cuáles son las ventajas de traer a la Tierra pedacitos de otros cuerpos planetarios? Explora estas misiones con el astroquímico José Aponte, la ingeniera Nayi Castro y la analista de política espacial Laura Delgado López.

This audio is the air compressor for MOXIE pumping air on Mars. MOXIE was launched aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover to test a technology for extracting oxygen from the Red Planet’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CNES/IRAP

NASA Technicians Scott Bartram, Eric Bentley, Maria Salinas, and Phil Steele discuss their hands-on work on a variety of projects and technologies.

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Engineering Technicians Jason Nelson, Kyle Whitfield, and Alex Zamora discuss their essential contributions to NASA missions.

NASA Langley Research Center Retired Chief Scientist Dennis Bushnell discusses highlights of his 60-year NASA career and the future of the agency.

OSIRIS-REx Mission Systems Engineer Ron Mink discusses preparation for the return of the United States' first asteroid sample from space to Earth.

NASA TechLeap Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge Manager Greg Peters discusses the lunar landing challenge.

NASA Flight Opportunities Program Manager Danielle McCulloch discusses rapid demonstration of technologies and capabilities for NASA missions and commercial spaceflight.

NASA Chief Knowledge Officer and APPEL Knowledge Services Director Tiffany Smith discusses knowledge sharing and learning and development.

NASA Engineering and Safety Center Director Tim Wilson discusses the NESC's contributions to NASA mission success.

NASA Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory Critical Systems Engineer Jim Sarafin discusses training astronauts for spacewalks.

NASA Research Electrical Engineer Lyndsey McMillon-Brown discusses development of perovskite solar cell technology for Moon and Mars exploration.