The sights and sounds of space

Have you ever heard an aurora? Or a black hole? Have you ever filled your screen with the fireworks of the final frontier? Help yourself to the biggest pictures and the coolest sounds from space.

Where to begin? This week, the scientists behind NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope put out a new view of the Fireworks Galaxy, a dazzling spiral about 17 million light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.

The Fireworks Galaxy isn't being featured just because it's getting close to the Fourth of July: Astronomers took a close look at the scene to figure out whether a supernova first spotted earlier this year was really a supernova after all. Their conclusion, slated for publication in the July 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, was that the outburst may have been a new type of explosion for dusty, massive stars.

For a different kind of celestial crack-up, check out the Gemini Observatory's picture of a collision between two nearly identical spiral galaxies in the constellation Virgo, 90 million light-years from Earth. Astronomers have charted the gravitational interaction between NGC 5426 and NGC 5427, and say the galactic dance may serve as a preview of our own Milky Way galaxy's encounter with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy billions of years from now.

Such collisions are thought to end up creating fuzzy elliptical galaxies - and that fuzzy prediction goes for the NGC 5426-27 pairing as well as the future "Milkomeda" crash.

In space, no one can hear a galaxy crash. But here on Earth, astronomers can turn cosmic emanations into alien-sounding audio. The latest example is the European Space Agency's rendition of Earth's chirping aurora. The ESA's Cluster satellite constellation recorded radio emissions from the aurora, and astronomers translated those readings into an audio track that sounds like birds twittering.

Astronomers have used similar wavelength-translation tricks to produce spooky audio from electric field noise around Saturn, radio waves detected near Jupiter, radar pings from meteor showers and even X-ray emissions from a black hole.

For more elegant sights and sounds, you should check out the GLAST Prelude for Brass Quintet, Op. 12. The piece was composed by Nolan Gasser to mark this month's launch of NASA's Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (a.k.a. GLAST) - and will serve as the prelude for a large-scale multimedia symphony titled "Cosmic Reflections."

"Cosmic Reflections" will use music, narration and film to trace the entire 13.7 billion-year history of the universe, and celebrate GLAST's role in unraveling that history. The tone poem is due for its premiere at Washington's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the fall of 2009, according to the composer's Web site.

Some of the world's best cosmic compositions can be found in our own Space Gallery, which currently features the latest installment of our "Month in Space" slide show. Every time we put out a fresh batch of pictures, some folks want to know where they can get bigger versions of the images for their photo-quality printouts and computer desktops. With that in mind, we offer these links to more information and bigger digital files:

• Leisurely liftoff: Feast your eyes on a bigger version of Reuters' picture, and dive into our coverage of the shuttle Discovery's mission.
• A gaggle of galaxies: This Hubble view was a Cosmic Log crowd-pleaser.
• Chaos on Mars: One of the many cool pictures from the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
• More highlights from HiRISE: You'll also find alien sand dunes as well as scribbles on the Red Planet, a fresh blast in a Martian crater, chloride on Mars, cracks on Mars and Red Planet hot spots.
• Here's the scoop: NASA's Phoenix Web site shows you the Mars lander's robotic scoop at work.
• The moon on Earth: There's a whole multimedia presentation on the Moses Lake moon tests.
• In the station's sights: Check out NASA's Human Spaceflight Web site for the wide-angle view of the shuttle as seen from the international space station.
• Red Planet's disappearing ice: Learn more about Martian ice from our story and the Phoenix Web site.
• Picture-perfect landing: Here's a bigger version of EPA's picture of the shuttle landing.
• Double defense: We had a story about the missile test, and the Missile Defense Agency has more imagery.
• Baby Red Spot: Check out our story and more Hubble imagery.
• Echoes from a supernova: The Spitzer Space Telescope captured the light echoes.
• Ring of fire:Spitzer again!
• Black at the core: The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has dazzling pictures of the galaxy M81, which had its day in the Cosmic Log spotlight.
• Finding the Phoenix: HiRISE spotted Phoenix far below, and also saw the lander floating past a Martian crater.
• A star's dusty cloak: The European Southern Observatory has the full story about the latest view of Eta Carinae.
• The green Black Sea: NASA's MODIS team documented beautiful blooms of plankton in the Black Sea.
• Mapping the leaves: MODIS also mapped the globe's distribution of leaves in shades of green, brown and black.
• China quake: NASA's Earth Observatory has the big before-and-after views showing the impact of last month's earthquake in China.