Space has never sounded better (literally it hasn't, as it is a near vacuum where sound waves don't propagate). NASA launched its first official SoundCloud account last week in time for Twitter's introduction of embeddable audio clips, and already the space agency has posted over 60 recordings from current projects and famous historic missions. The actual audio of NASA astronaut Jack Swigert saying "Houston, we've had a problem" on Apollo 13? It's here.
So too is Neil Armstrong's famous line "the Eagle has landed" from Apollo 11, when he became the first person ever to land on the moon.
But there are stranger, non-human noises posted too, everything from rockets and the Space Shuttle blasting off to the sound of interstellar plasma captured outside of our solar system by Voyager, the farthest-traveled spacecraft ever in human history (it's still going).
Best of all, NASA's SoundCloud files are in the public domain, like the majority of NASA's content, meaning you can download and re-use them in your own otherworldly music compositions or sci-fi films. And more NASA sounds are on the way — as Jason Townsend, NASA's deputy social media manager, told me in a quick phone chat: "we're constantly looking for new things to be added to share the sounds of space." He pointed to the new test-firing sounds of the Space Launch System, NASA's next and biggest rocket that is now under construction, as one of his top sounds so far.
I've rounded up a few more that I hope will make you feel like Major Tom.
I'm not really sure what this is...