This is the sound of hydrogen, the most common element in the universe.

It's the simplest atom, the building block of stars, and the stuff that turns unsaturated

fat into saturated fat.

It also blew up the Hindenburg.

But how are we listening to hydrogen?

It doesn't normally make noise, does it?

Well, atomic hydrogen absorbs and emits radiation at certain frequencies: its atomic spectrum.

And, if hydrogen emitted sound waves instead of light waves, this is what it would sound

like (though I did pitch-shift it down so it would be audible to the human ear)

So, just like you might have seen false-color pictures of galaxies and planets made by shifting

infrared or radio-wave images into the visible spectrum, this is a false-pitch sound, shifted

into the audible spectrum.

And it's what our eyes hear when they see this:

Enjoy