Oct 30 2006

Prev/Next Posts: « Send your name to the asteroid belt! || Hubble is GO! »

Cosmically creepy chords

Posted at 9:14 pm in Cool stuff, Science, Time Sink

Chandra image of the Perseus cluster, looking like a giant skull

When I was a kid it was popular for people to have records playing (yes, LPs) of weird sounds out their windows. Screams, moans, creaky doors, all those cheesy sounds. One house had whale songs playing, which I thought was cool and not at all scary.

I was thinking about this today, and suddenly remembered a post I put up last July about extremely creepy sounds from Saturn and the Earth’s aurora. Wanna scare the kiddies on Halloween? Download those and loop ‘em. You’ll probably scare them enough to have lots of leftover candy.

Here’s the link to the Earth sounds, and here are the very creepy Saturn sounds.

Oh, and the picture above? That’s just a little Halloween gift from the Chandra space observatory.

15 Responses to “Cosmically creepy chords”

  1. # Merovingianon 30 Oct 2006 at 11:03 pm

    Wow, that’d be a nice pumpkin carving design.

  2. # skeptigirlon 31 Oct 2006 at 2:21 am

    Those are great! The image resembles Bill the Cat.

  3. # skeptigirlon 31 Oct 2006 at 2:23 am

    http://einstein.library.emory.edu/images/bill_the_cat.jpg
    Bill the Cat - the post just left the link out. Not sure if it’s my not knowing the blog code or the currently haunted blog software.

  4. # PKon 31 Oct 2006 at 3:48 am

    Saturn sounds fantastic!

  5. # rich (richmanwisco)on 31 Oct 2006 at 6:01 am

    Wow….I wonder what Hoagland thinks about that pic!

  6. # Melusineon 31 Oct 2006 at 6:03 am

    I finally joined the 21st Century and got DSL…nice and fast! Anyway, the Saturn sounds are definitely eerie. Reminds me of how Astroworld (now-closed amusement park in Houston) used to play music like that over all the speakers in the park. At night it was great atmosphere while you were waiting in line to ride rollercoasters. How cool it would be to tell kids what these sounds are really about. Nature can sound genuinely ghoulish at times.

  7. # Danon 31 Oct 2006 at 7:04 am

    Hmmm… After hearing those Earth sounds, some people will really think that there are extra-terrestrial spaceships out there, watching us…

  8. # Jeffon 31 Oct 2006 at 7:30 am

    Saturn reminds me of the music from the film ‘Forbidden Planet’. Were they listening to Saturn in the ’50’s?

  9. # The Bad Astronomeron 31 Oct 2006 at 8:27 am

    Jeff, the first link in this post goes to the post from July 2005 where I made that very point. :)

  10. # Gary Ansorgeon 31 Oct 2006 at 9:23 am

    Someday, someone will surf the rings of Saturn and there will ensue a hugh discussion over the disruption of the natural errie sounds of the rings. Wish I could be there, writing in your Blog,,,

    GAry 7

  11. # Confuddledon 31 Oct 2006 at 9:23 am

    Thanks for the Saturn sound!

    I burned it on a disk and I’m going to have it repeat on my porch so the Trick-or-treaters get to hear it!

  12. # Gary Ansorgeon 31 Oct 2006 at 9:35 am

    I hadn’t listened to the Saturn sounds befor I posted. Did it just now. Wow! I do believe I heard these sounds at the last Dead show I attended in ‘94, during the Drum/Space jam. Guess the gray aliens liked the show so much they took it home with them,,,heh,heh,,,

    gary 7

  13. # SpikeNuton 31 Oct 2006 at 8:52 pm

    Somewhere I read that Dr. Mark Whittle has the sounds of the Cosmic Background Radiation. Probably on his webpage. If I remember tomorrow I will check. Those are probably not scary enough to scare anybody, but it is kind of cool.

  14. # Melusineon 02 Nov 2006 at 2:46 am

    A fun site for spacesounds can be found here. Click on all the silver buttons. The four buttons below the circle lead to whalesounds, etc. I like the pulsar sounds:
    http://spacesounds.com/home/index.html

  15. # Nanetteon 06 Nov 2006 at 6:35 pm

    It may be a cool site for sure but I ordered a whale cd October 10. Haven’t received a thing, heard a thing or can I find anywhere on the website that provides customer service.

    The charge of course quickly showed up on my credit card? Has anyone ever ordered anything from them?

    Peace, Nanette

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply