Analysis for The Conversation by Associate Professor Jeffrey Cooke, Swinburne University of Technology. We often think of astronomy as a visual science with ...
The different strengths of the higher-order harmonics enable the listener to quickly identify the instrument. Each object studied would have a unique tone, or belong to a class of tones, depending on its overall properties. However, the same data can be comprehended much more easily through sonification. Data sonification is useful for interpreting science because humans interpret audio information faster than visual information. Using data sonification to verify these signals and identify outliers can be powerful. However, the majority of these events are faint bursts, and computers are only so good at finding them. We employ computers and artificial intelligence to deal with these massive numbers of detections. These events allow us to understand extreme physics at the highest-known energies and densities. Fast radio bursts are millisecond bursts of radio emission that can be detected halfway across the universe. Similarly, science is always pushing the boundaries of what can be detected, which often requires extracting very faint signals from noisy data. While you may have never experienced such a party, the thought of hearing a recognisable voice or language in a noisy room is familiar. However, astronomers use a wide range of analysis tools beyond images to understand nature at a deeper level.