Astronomers turn cosmic radio bursts into music you can hear in a cathedral

Astronomers have discovered thousands of fast radio bursts (FRBs)—intensely powerful flashes of energy from distant galaxies that last mere milliseconds and release more energy than our sun does in three days. While these radio waves are invisible and silent to human senses, a collaboration between artist Andrew Melchior and MIT physicist Kiyoshi Masui has transformed data from 4,539 bursts collected by Canada's CHIME telescope into an audible sound installation.

The resulting composition, called 'The Logos,' plays daily in Finland's Oulu Cathedral, converting the cosmic signals—some as old as 9 billion years—into a symphony of hums, rumbles, pops, and whistles through 12 loudspeakers. This sonification project makes one of the universe's most mysterious phenomena accessible to human ears, offering a new, visceral way to experience deep-space events that scientists are still struggling to fully explain.