We've taken ten seconds of data from the Arecibo telescope and converted it to sound. The original data is around 1.42 GigaHertz (billion cycles/second), which is way too high to hear. We've extracted a 10 KHz band and shifted it down to the audible 0-10KHz range.
Expect to hear a hissing sound. That's how radio waves from space generally sound. The type of signal SETI@home is searching for would sound like a whistle. It would probably be too faint to hear (although SETI@home could hopefully detect it).
Select one of the following formats (try WAV first):
Some interesting radio patterns come from natural sources. For example, here is the wave from a pulsar (a spinning collapsed start) called Pulsar_B0329+54 (thanks to Antony Interlandi for sending us this).
To listen to more sounds from space, see spacesounds.com.
Copyright ©2001 SETI@home