Scientists from the University of Cambridge have detected sound waves emanating from a black hole for the first time.

Using NASA’s Chandra x-ray observatory the sound waves were detected coming from a supermassive black hole in the Perseus cluster, roughly 250 million light years from earth. The ‘note’ is the deepest ever detected from an object in the Universe and the tremendous amounts of energy carried by the sound waves may solve a longstanding problem in astrophysics.

In 2002, astronomers obtained a deep Chandra observation that shows ripples in the gas filling the cluster. These ripples are evidence for sound waves that have travelled hundreds of thousands of light years away from the cluster’s central black hole.

Andrew Fabian of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge and leader of the study said:

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