We’re told there’s no sound in space; that it’s silent. But is that strictly true? <\/p>
Is space silent? Well, you\u2019re not going to need ear-defenders, put it that way!<\/p>
The simple answer here, of course, is yes: space is silent because it\u2019s a vacuum.<\/p>
After all, what our ears perceive as ‘sound’ is just a pressure wave that passes through a medium, be that medium a solid, liquid or gas, and agitates the molecules within it.<\/p>
When that pressure wave hits our ears, it causes small hairs and bones within them to vibrate, which sends an electrical signal to the brain that we interpret as sound.<\/p> But in a vacuum, where there are no molecules of liquid, solid or gas to agitate, that can\u2019t happen \u2013 so there is no sound.<\/p> But when you\u2019re talking about space, the simple, easy answer is seldom entirely correct \u2013 and that\u2019s the case here, too.<\/p> That\u2019s because space isn\u2019t actually a vacuum at all.<\/p> Yes, huge regions of it are, particularly in interstellar and intergalactic space.<\/p> But within galaxies<\/a> and nebulae<\/a> are huge, swirling clouds of gas and dust, and the molecules within those clouds are just as capable of being agitated and so passing on a pressure wave \u2013 ie, sound \u2013 as their counterparts here on Earth.<\/p> As if to prove the point, in 2022 NASA released a sound recording of a black hole<\/a>, extrapolated from observational data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.<\/p>