Astronomers using the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory have discovered a powerful "basso profundo" adding its notes to the music of the spheres.
The international team has detected sound waves generated by an enormous black hole at the center of one of the most massive galaxies known to astronomy. At 57 octaves below middle C on a piano, the black hole's "hum" is the lowest pitch ever detected from a celestial object.
Mel Gibson's voice:
108 vibrations per second
Lowest audible sound for humans:
20 vibrations per second
Lowest audible sound for elephants:
1 vibration per hour
Perseus cluster's emission:
1 vibration per10 million years
Peter N. Spotts
The Christian Science Monitor
September 10, 2003
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"Hunters on Big Laurel swore that an owl made utterments like those of a human, and though they found no agreement on its message, all confirmed that as the owl spoke, there appeared to be two moons in the sky."
Charles Frazier
Cold Mountain
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"We're picking up an amazingly loud party near Alpha Centauri. They're only
about four light years from here. That's practically next door.... God. Music.
Four light years away."
Mary Doria Russell
The Sparrow
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At night she took to walking out into the pampa and lying on her back to
look at the galaxy above, and sometimes, under the influence of that bright
flow of beauty, she would begin to tremble all over, to shudder with a deep
delight, and to hum an unknown tune, and this star-music was as close as she
came to joy."
Salman Rushdie
The Satanic Verses
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