WION: Can you ‘hear’ an image? This sentence itself appears contradictory. We see images and hear sounds. But how can we hear images? Scientifically speaking, there is a process that uses audio to give users a perception of data. This is called sonification.
The concept is interesting in itself but when you associate that with an image clicked by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), it becomes all the more fascinating. NASA has teamed up with scientists, musicians and a member of visually impaired community to carry out sonification of an image. It is an image of a nebula. More specifically Carina Nebula.
Nebulas are nurseries of stars. New stars are born there. The sonification of the image is aimed at aiding blind individuals to ‘see’ the image with help of sound. “These compositions provide a different way to experience the detailed information in Webb’s first data. Similar to how written descriptions are unique translations of visual images, sonifications also translate the visual images by encoding information, like colour, brightness, star locations, or water absorption signatures, as sounds,” said Quyen Hart, a senior education and outreach scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, in a NASA press statement.
Trying to shed more light on the nature of this flare, Son’s team obtained optical and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic data using Gemini Observatory’s GMOS and GNIRS spectrographs.
They found that broad emission lines in Paschen-alpha (Paα) and Paschen-beta (Paβ) newly appear, while the broad hydrogen (Hβ) emission is marginally detected in the post-flare spectrum.