'Listening’ to the Universe for new perspectives on space

The method enables new approaches to sonification, investigating how astronomy can be studied and communicated by ‘listening’ to data.

‘Sonification’ is a term for presenting data using non-verbal sound, but is much less common than data visualisation techniques.

The team have developed a free, open-source code, STRAUSS, which gives researchers the tools they need to translate their own data into sound, at frequencies that can be heard by the human ear.

Dr Chris Harrison, who coordinates the team’s wider Audio Universe project from Newcastle University said: "One of the unique features of our code is its flexibility to be used for a wide variety of applications. We have demonstrated its effectiveness as an analysis tool for astrophysics research. The same code has been used for making educational resources and planetarium shows, which are also accessible to blind and vision impaired audiences."

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