I am one of the designers of the open source sonification python package called 'STRAUSS' (Sonification Tools and Resources for Astronomers Using Sound Synthesis). This is open source on github, hosted by its lead developer, Dr James Trayford: https://github.com/james-trayford/strauss. It can be installed via pip.
This package underpins our wider research and engagement project 'Audio Universe', which aims to use sound for both scientific research and for accessibility to science. A paper introducing the code is available at Trayford and Harrison 2023 (published in ICAD). Version 1 of the package was released in 2025, and you can expect to find a much easier to use Version 2 of the package released in 2026.
STRAUSS allows you to read in data and use this to manipulate sounds, which are either created synthetically within the code or are read in as audio files. For example, you can use data to control the amplitude and frequency of a synthesised sound as a function of time. More complex options are available, such as using data to control a frequency cut-off filter which can have the effect of changing the persevered timbre of a sound. Full spatialisation of the output audio is also possible.
STRAUSS has been used for various applications, which can be explored on our website and YouTube channel.
One possibility with STRAUSS is to turn a light spectrum (e.g., from a distant galaxy) into a sound spectrum by using an inverse fourier transform. This means that features in the light spectrum can be heard in the sound. This concept was introduced in Trayford et al. 2023. PhD student Rose Shepherd, is currently investigating how to build on this to create a "Sonic Inspection" method for large spectroscopic datasets that need some level of manual inspection when the data is obtained and processed.
This approach can also be applied to multiple dimensions. In the video below, the light spectra around a specific emission line is traced at every spatial pixel of the galaxy. The sound has been produced from the spectra such that when the gas is moving away from us (with respect to the centre of the galaxy) it sounds as a lower pitch and when it is approaching it sounds as a higher pitch. Furthermore if the gas is more chaotic is sounds windier. In the video you can hear the galaxy rotation (changes in perceived pitch) and the choatic gas in the central regions due the a supermassive black hole (sounds windier).
For more about my sonification research within Audio Universe, check out the project webpage: https://www.audiouniverse.org/data-exploration.
We are using STRAUSS to build tools to help science communicators use sonification for communicating astronomy. This is intended to make more engaging and immersive science shows, as well as improve accessibility to audiences who need, or prefer, non-visual methods of communication. Towards this we are conducting research with different audiences to assess how sonification can be used to communicate scientific concepts effectively whilst also creating an enjoyable experience.
An example of how this might work is presented in the video below. The research is investigating the effictiveness of these different approaches. Here we experiment with sonifications of the light curves of 3 of the stars from the Pleiades star cluster (Pleione, Taygata, and Merope). 7 days of data are used in each day, and 1 second of the sonification corresponds to 1 day of data. These are normalised light curves so we can really hear the shape of the variations in brightness, even though the real variations are very small.
For each star we present three different approaches:
1. Mapping the data to a musical, pentatonic scale, and using pitch to represent brightness (a harp sound is used). The result is that when the star is brighter the notes heard are higher in pitch.
2. Using white noise as the base sound with a frequency low-pass filter, and the data is used to control the cut-off frequency. The effect is that when the star is brighter, more higher frequency sounds are heard.
3. Using a frequency filter cut-off approach again, but this time using a musical chord as the base sound. The result is, more of the higher pitch notes are heard when the star is brighter.
The clip is ordered so that we hear all three stars (Pleione, Taygata, Merope) for the first sonification approach, then all three stars again for the second approach, and finally all three stars for the third approach.
Related Popular/Press Articles connected to Audio Universe and STRAUSS:
"Music from the stars with a Caribbean Beat", Newcastle & Portsmouth Press Release January 2025
"Watch and Listen to Gravitational Waves Arriving from Every Direction in the Universe", IFL Science, July 2024
"Audio Astronomy Unlocks a Universe of Sound", Scientific American, January 2022.
"Helping blind people 'hear' the Universe", press release December 2021.