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Sounds and Ringtones

Audio and Ringtones

Translating NASA Data Into Sound

There’s a new, immersive way to explore NASA’s data of our Universe. NASA has taken observational data from telescopes like NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope and others, and translated it into corresponding frequencies that can be heard by the human ear.  A team of scientists, musicians, and a member of the blind and visually impaired community worked to adapt the NASA data. The audio tracks support blind and low-vision listeners first, but are designed to be captivating to anyone who tunes in.

James Webb Space Telescope Sonifications

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Explore infrared images and data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope through sound. Listeners can enter the soundscape of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, explore the tones of the Southern Ring Nebula, and hear data from the transmission spectrum of an exoplanet.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K.Arcand (CXC/SAO), M.Russo & A.Santaguida (SYSTEM Sounds), Q.Hart & C.Blome (STScI), and C.Malec (consultant).

Hubble Space Telescope Sonifications

Hubble image of giant red nebula and smaller blue neighbor nebula (NGC 2014 and NGC 2020)
This Hubble image, titled “Cosmic Reef” because of the resemblance to an undersea world, highlights the giant red nebula (NGC 2014) and its smaller blue neighbor (NGC 2020) in a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A grouping of bright, hefty stars, each 10 to 20 times more massive than our Sun, are the centerpiece of the image. Their cosmic winds and radiation shape the surrounding gas.
NASA, ESA and STScI

Ever wondered what the music of the spheres would sound like? Hubble brings us cosmic sights, but these astronomical marvels can be experienced with other senses as well. Through data sonification, the same digital data that gets translated into images is transformed into sound.

Elements of the image, like brightness and position, are assigned pitches and volumes. No sound can travel in space, but sonifications provide a new way of experiencing and conceptualizing data. Sonifications allow the audience, including blind and visually impaired communities, to “listen” to astronomical images and explore their data.

Chandra X-ray Observatory Sonifications

A bright white center is encircled with pinks, purples and yellow colors with a black background dotted with white and blue stars.
This composite image of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant, was assembled by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum: the Very Large Array, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, the XMM-Newton Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
NASA, ESA, NRAO/AUI/NSF and G. Dubner (University of Buenos Aires)

Sonification is the process that translates data into sound, and Chandra’s sound project brings our high-energy Universe to listeners for the first time. Listen to data translated from exploded stars, areas around black holes, clusters of stars and more. 

Credit: NASA, SAO, CXC, and K.Arcand (CXC/SAO), M.Russo & A.Santaguida (SYSTEM Sounds), and C.Malec (consultant).

Sounds of Artemis I Moon Rocket Launch

Launch of Artemis as see through a circle lens filter. The smoke and fire light up the bottom of the screen.
Liftoff! NASA’s Space Launch System carrying the Orion spacecraft lifts off the pad at Launch Complex 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2022.

Listen to the sounds of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket roaring to life and lifting off from the launch pad for the first time. The Moon rocket, carrying the Orion spacecraft atop, launched the Artemis I test flight from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022. 
As the rocket launched, NASA launch commentator Derrol Nail said, “We rise together, back to the Moon – and beyond.”

Artemis I is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to the Moon. With Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface and establish long-term exploration at the Moon in preparation for human missions to Mars.

Downloads

Liftoff

Aug 15, 2023

MPEG (199.92 KB)

Artemis I Launch

We Rise Together

Aug 14, 2023

MPEG (174.61 KB)

Sounds of Mars from Perseverance Rover

This image was taken during the first drive of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars on March 4, 2021.
This image was taken during the first drive of NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars on March 4, 2021. Perseverance landed on Feb. 18, 2021, and the team has been spending the weeks since landing checking out the rover to prepare for surface operations.

This recording was made by the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on Feb. 19, 2021, just about 18 hours after landing on the mission’s first sol or Martian day. The rover’s mast, holding the microphone, was still stowed on Perseverance’s deck, and so the sound is muffled, a little like the sound one hears listening to a seashell or having a hand cupped over the ear. Just a little wind can be heard.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero

This recording was made on Feb. 22, 2021, on the fourth sol (Martian day) by the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance rover after deployment of the rover’s mast. It provides a different overall sound than the SuperCam audio recording from the mission’s first sol. Some wind can be heard, especially around 20 seconds into the recording. Rover background sounds have been removed.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero

This is the first acoustic recording of laser impacts on a rock target on Mars from March 2, 2021, the 12th sol (Martian day) from Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument. The sounds of 30 impacts are heard, some slightly louder than others. Variations in the intensity of the zapping sounds will provide information on the physical structure of the targets, such as its relative hardness or the presence of weathering coatings. The target, Máaz (“Mars” in Navajo), was about 10 feet (3.1 m) away.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero

For the first time, a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its SuperCam microphone to listen to the Ingenuity helicopter on April 30, 2021 as it flew on Mars for the fourth time.
With Perseverance parked 262 feet (80 meters) from the helicopter’s takeoff and landing spot, the mission wasn’t sure if the microphone would pick up any sound of the flight. Even during flight when the helicopter’s blades are spinning at 2,537 rpm, the sound is greatly muffled by the thin Martian atmosphere. It is further obscured by Martian wind gusts during the initial moments of the flight. Listen closely, though, and the helicopter’s hum can be heard faintly above the sound of those winds.
Scientists made the audio, which is recorded in mono, easier to hear by isolating the 84 hertz helicopter blade sound, reducing the frequencies below 80 hertz and above 90 hertz, and increasing the volume of the remaining signal. Some frequencies were clipped to bring out the helicopter’s hum
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaéro

This audio shows the results of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover using its SuperCam microphone to record the sounds of a Martian dust devil – the first time any such recording has been made. The dust devil passed directly over Perseverance on Sept. 27, 2021, the 215th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/INTA-CSIC/Space Science Institute/ISAE-Supaero

This recording was made by the Perseverance Mars rover on February 9, 2022 (Sol 346). The puffs and pings of the rover’s Gaseous Dust Removal Tool (gDRT) were collected using a microphone on the rover’s chassis. The gRDT has a tank of nitrogen gas and is used during sample collection to blow the dust away and reveal the fresh rock surface underneath.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Listen to 16 minutes of raw, unfiltered sounds of the Perseverance Mars rover traveling in Jezero Crater. The noise generated by the interaction of the rover’s wheels and suspension with the surface can be heard, along with a high-pitched scratching noise. Perseverance’s engineering team continues to evaluate the source of the scratching noise, which may either be electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronics boxes or interactions between the rover mobility system and the Martian surface. The entry, descent, and landing microphone was not intended for surface operations and had limited testing in this configuration before launch.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA engineers combined three segments from the raw audio file recorded while the Perseverance Mars rover rolled across a section of Jezero Crater on sol 16 of the mission. Sections 0:20-0:45, 6:40-7:10, and 14:30-15:00 were combined into this 90-second highlight clip. There has been processing and editing to filter out some of the noise.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Audio of Juno’s Ganymede Flyby

NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission’s 40th close pass by the giant planet on Feb. 25, 2022. The large, dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission’s 40th close pass by the giant planet on Feb. 25, 2022. The large, dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.

Hear radio emissions collected during Juno’s June 7, 2021, flyby of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/Univ of Iowa

Sounds of Mars from InSight Lander

NASA's InSight lander took this final selfie on April 24, 2022. The lander is covered with far more dust than it was in its first selfie, taken in December 2018, or in its second selfie, taken in March and April of 2019.
NASA’s InSight Mars lander took this final selfie on April 24, 2022, the 1,211th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The lander is covered with far more dust than it was in its first selfie, taken in December 2018, not long after landing – or in its second selfie, composed of images taken in March and April 2019. The arm needs to move several times in order to capture a full selfie. Because InSight’s dusty solar panels are producing less power, the team will soon put the lander’s robotic arm in its resting position (called the “retirement pose”) for the last time in May of 2022. Animation available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25287

A recording of “dinks and donks,” strange sounds created by friction inside of InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS. Scientists aren’t entirely sure what causes each of these sounds, by they are created by parts inside the seismometer contracting as they cool down, especially during sunset. These were recorded on just after sundown on July 16, 2019 (Sol 226).

A recording of a magnitude 3.3 marsquake from InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS. This quake was recorded on July 25, 2019 (Sol 235). Far below the human range of hearing, this sonification from SEIS had to be sped up and slightly processed to be audible through headphones.

A recording of a magnitude 3.7 marsquake from InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS. This quake was recorded on May 22, 2019 (the 173rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission). Far below the human range of hearing, this sonification from SEIS had to be sped up and slightly processed to be audible through headphones.

A recording of sounds created by InSight’s robotic arm as its camera scanned the surface of Mars on March 6, 2019, the 98th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Also captured are wind gusts and “dinks” produced by friction inside of InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS.

A subwoofer or earphones are needed to hear this clip. Listen to raw, unprocessed data from the seismometer on NASA’s InSight spacecraft of vibrations caused by wind moving over the solar panels on Mars. The sounds were recorded by two of the three short-period sensors on the seismometer (SEIS).

A subwoofer or earphones are needed to hear this clip. Listen to raw, unprocessed data from the seismometer on NASA’s InSight spacecraft of vibrations caused by wind moving over the solar panels on Mars.  The sounds were recorded by two of the three short-period sensors on the seismometer (SEIS).

Listen to data from the seismometer on NASA’s InSight spacecraft of vibrations caused by Martian wind moving over the lander’s solar panels. In this version, the data have been processed to raise the frequencies by two octaves to make them more audible.

Listen to data from the air pressure sensor on NASA’s InSight lander, indicating wind blowing by on Mars. The data were sped up by a factor of 100, shortening the duration of the recording and shifting it up in frequency 100 times (a little more than six octaves).

Third Rock Radio

Third Rock Radio logo

NASA’s mission of discovery and exploration is being showcased in a custom-produced Internet music radio station that is crafted specifically to speak the language of tech-savvy young adults. Third Rock – America’s Space Station offers listeners a New Rock/Indie/Alternative format. The station is being developed and operated at no cost to the government through a Space Act Agreement with Houston-based RFC Media. Third Rock also will help partner companies fill high-tech job openings in the engineering, science and IT fields. Visit Third Rock.

NASA on Soundcloud

A close-up view of an astronaut's bootprint in the lunar soil
A close-up view of an astronaut’s bootprint in the lunar soil, photographed with a 70mm lunar surface camera during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA) on the moon. While astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot, descended in the Lunar Module (LM) “Eagle” to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) “Columbia” in lunar orbit.

Explore the universe and discover our home planet with NASA through a collection of our sounds from historic spaceflights and current missions. You can hear the roar of a space shuttle launch or Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” every time you get a phone call if you make our sounds your ringtone. Or, you can hear the memorable words “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” every time you make an error on your computer.
For sound file use policy, please see Media Usage Guidelines.

Discovery

This view of the space shuttle Discovery was provided by an Expedition 23 crew member during a survey of the departing vehicle following undocking from the International Space Station on April 17. The Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module is visible in Discovery's cargo bay.
This view of the space shuttle Discovery was provided by an Expedition 23 crew member during a survey of the departing vehicle following undocking from the International Space Station on April 17. The Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module is visible in Discovery’s cargo bay.
NASA

Here’s a collection of sounds from the space shuttle Discovery. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

MP3:

M4R (iPhone):

Shuttle and Station

Launch of Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-41C
The Space Shuttle Challenger and its five-member astronaut crew leave the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to begin a six-day stay in space. The launch occurred at 8:58:00:03 a.m. (EST), April 6, 1984. This photo was made with a 120 camera.

Here’s a collection of sounds from the space shuttle. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

MP3:

M4R (iPhone):

Apollo and Mercury

John Glenn poses in his space suit with the Friendship 7 spacecraft
Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr., pilot of the Mercury Atlas 6 (MA-6) spaceflight, poses for a photo with the Mercury “Friendship 7” spacecraft during preflight activities.
NASA

Here’s a collection of sounds from Apollo and Mercury. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

MP3:

M4R (iPhone):

Missions

saturn and titan
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, looks quite small in comparison to the giant planet behind it in this natural color view from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft.

Here’s a collection of sounds from various missions. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

MP3:

M4R (iPhone):

Beeps and Bytes

Sputnik 1
History changed on Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The world’s first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball, about 23 inches in diameter and weighing less than 190 pounds.

Here’s a collection of sounds from various missions. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

MP3:

Courtesy of Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS) team at the University of Iowa

M4R (iPhone):

Courtesy of Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS) team at the University of Iowa

Sounds of the Future

Ringtone Directions:
Android (MP3 format) – We recommend downloading the most recent version of the NASA App for Android for previewing and installing these ringtones. The ringtones option is found on the main screen of NASA App for Android by hitting the menu button on your phone.
iPhone (M4R format) – Please visit our iPhone directions for downloading and installing M4R ringtones page.
Other (MP3 format) – Most smartphones can play MP3 files as ringtones. The process for downloading and installing ringtones to a smartphone may vary greatly based on phone, operating system, and service provider. Check your phone’s user manual or your provider’s website. Some providers may limit your access to ringtones not sold through their site. You can still enjoy the MP3 files on your computer.
MP3:

M4R (iPhone):

Featured Podcast

Houston We Have a Podcast

From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists and engineers who make it possible.

View Series

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October 6, 2023

Mars Audio Log #2

View Episode Details