In the 2014 hit movie by Christopher Nolan, Matthew McConaughey’s character, Joseph Cooper, goes into a black hole. There, he only sees “flashes of light in the blackness,” and the audience can only hear his ship creaking and things hitting it.
In reality, NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program has recorded the sound a black hole makes, and it sounds more like scary ghosts than stars.
First, a bit about science. NASA said, “It is a myth that there is no sound in space.”
You may have heard that space is mostly a vacuum, which is mostly true. However, “A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we’ve picked up actual sound,” NASA said, adding that the sound waves have been “amplified and mixed with other data” in the video.
Now, let’s talk about the 30-second clip that was posted on Twitter. It could easily be used as the music for a ghost movie.
The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel. A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we've picked up actual sound. Here it's amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole! pic.twitter.com/RobcZs7F9e
— NASA Exoplanets (@NASAExoplanets) August 21, 2022