Caption

This sonification is based on a simulation of data that NASA’s Roman Space Telescope will collect after its launch as soon as fall 2026. The sonification converts the waves moving inside red giant stars into sound. These pressure waves cause tiny changes in brightness that Roman can measure. Bigger stars take longer for the waves to bounce around, which means brightness changes have lower frequencies. Here, those frequencies are turned into sound and sped up so we can hear them. The first sound in the sonification comes from the Sun to give a sense of scale (even though Roman won’t look at the Sun). It then moves on to bigger and bigger red giants, with the pitch changing for each one. Astronomers can calculate a star’s size and other properties by measuring these frequencies.