Chandra Release - November 21, 2022 Visual Description: V404 Cygni Today's release includes four separate videos, each featuring a different sonification of the V404 Cygni system. At the heart of the V404 system is a black hole surrounded by material that has produced bursts of radiation, or light. These bursts expand outward in concentric rings which reflect off gas and dust clouds. Three different telescopes have focused on this system, and the data they collected has been interpreted as sound in separate videos. The fourth video combines all three to create a composite sonification. The video titled V404 Swift features a hazy, bright blue dot surrounded by three concentric, glowing, deep red rings set against a black background. The rings of radiation are grainy and blurred, resembling curved tire marks left in wet snow. The smallest ring, closest to the blue dot at the core, is tightest and brightest. The largest ring, furthest from the core, is most faint and appears to have dissipated [scattered]. The rings of radiation were observed as X-ray data collected by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. In the sonification video, a thin white circle expands from the core. As it passes over the rings, the datapoints crackle. The brighter the ring, the louder the sound. The video titled V404 Chandra features similar glowing concentric rings set against a black background. This time the radiation rings have been rendered in bright neon blue, representing data collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Here, there are clean breaks in the visualized radiation at our upper corners and in a straight horizontal line across the center of the frame, as if portions of the rings were removed with swipes of an eraser. These blank spots represent areas outside of Chandra's field of view. As the thin white circle expands in this sonification video, the radiation it washes over is translated into higher-frequency popping sounds. The video titled V404 Optical features a black sky dotted with specks of white and pale blue light. These are the V404 Cygni system background stars, photographed by the Digitized Sky Survey. As the thin white circle expands in this sonification video, each star it encounters triggers a musical note. The volume and pitch relate to the brightness of the stars. The primary sonification of this release combines all three previous videos. Here, the expanding thin white circle encounters the hazy bright blue dot at the core, the overlapping red and blue concentric rings, and all the stars in the sky, creating a musical interpretation of the V404 system some 7,800 light years from Earth.