What can you hear when you listen to the sounds of space data?!

In this game, we are all astronomers working to discover information about the universe... using our ears!

You will be listening to light-curve data. Light-curves are records of a star’s energy changing over time. They may be recordings of the star’s visible light brightening and darkening, or the amount of invisible energy, like ultra violet light, released. When our data is sonified, we represent changes in brightness as a change of pitch.

First, I want to see if you can detect stellar flares. Flares are when a star releases a lot of energy in a surface explosion. When sonified, more energy means higher pitch. Flares sound like *Blips* —a short, sudden rise in pitch.

Try listening to these 5 examples:

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* 1. Listen to this light curve. Do you think it contained at least one flare?

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* 2. Listen to this light curve. Do you think it contained at least one flare?

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* 3. Listen to this light curve. Do you think it contained at least one flare?

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* 4. Listen to this light curve. Do you think it contained at least one flare?

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* 5. Listen to this light curve. Do you think it contained at least one flare?

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* 6. Next I want to see if you can detect an exoplanet transit. Exoplanets orbit faraway stars. When we point a telescope at a star and a planet passes in front, it blocks some of the light. This is called a transit. A sonified transit starts high pitched, deepens, and then returned to its original pitch. The higher pitch represents more light reaching the telescope and the deeper pitch represents less light reaching the telescope.

These 4 light curves are from stars known to have a transiting exoplanet. Listen to to these examples and count the number of times you heard the exoplanet transit.

Listen to this light curve. How many transits did you count?

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* 7. Listen to this light curve. How many transits did you count?

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* 8. Listen to this light curve. How many transits did you count?

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* 9. Listen to this light curve. How many transits did you count?

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* 10. Are you Blind or Vision Impaired?

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* 11. Do you have a scientific or data analysis background?

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* 12. I hope you enjoyed putting on your astronomer hat. Do you have any comments or ideas about how to make these sonifications easier to understand?

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