Why in News ?
NASA’s sonification project that turns astronomical images into music. NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) has gone a step further by unveiling a new ‘sonification’ project that transforms data from astronomical images into audio.
NASA’s sonification project
- What is Sonification ?
- Data sonification refers to the use of sound values to represent real data.
- It is the auditory version of data visualisation.
- NASA’s Chandra project, for instance, data is represented using a number of musical notes.
- Users can now experience different phenomena captured in astronomical images as an aural experience.
- The birth of a star, a cloud of dust or even a black hole can now be ‘heard’ as a high or low pitched sound.
- Technology Behind the process
- Telescopes in space collect inherently digital data, in the form of ones and zeroes, before converting them into images.
- The images are essentially visual representations of light and radiation of different wavelengths in space, that can’t be seen by the human eye.
- Chandra project has created a celestial concert of sorts by translating the same data into sound.
- Pitch and volume are used to denote the brightness and position of a celestial object or phenomenon.
Use of Sonification Process
- Aims to incorporate NASA science content into the learning environment effectively and efficiently for learners of all ages.
- Over the years, NASA has been working towards making data about space accessible for a larger audience.
- According to a statement released by team Chandra, sonification projects like this allow audiences including visually-impaired communities to experience space through data.
Source : Indian Express
Topic
GS III : Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights
Current Affairs Compilation : 26 September 2020