Call them sounds to explore space by. YouTuber crysisknife007 has collected the cabin, engine, and alarm noises from more than two dozen of television and cinema's most iconic starships into a playlist of "Ambient Space Sounds" – and it's surprisingly good listening material.


In most of the videos – which range from 12- to 24-hours in length – the low-frequency drone of the spacecraft's "engine" is actually quite soothing (a clear exception being the 12-hour loop of Star Trek's red alert, which makes the alarm noise from Alien's Nostromo sound almost pleasant, by comparison). More than a few could probably even serve as decent stand-ins for a white- or brown-noise generator. Consider the ambient engine sound of Doctor Who's TARDIS (above) or that of the Death Star (below).

Pretty nice, right? Notably, the ambient noises of pretty much every fictional spacecraft in crysisknife007's playlist manage to be more relaxing than the ones heard aboard the International Space Station, a real-life orbital outpost:


And of course, none of them sound anywhere near as creepy as Voyager 1's "recordings" of interstellar space:

Explore crysisknife007's full Ambient Space Sounds Playlist here.

[Via MeFi]