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Space Science

NASA Music Out of This World 64

Posted by michael from the anthropomorphism dept.
Koyaanisqatsi writes "With detection instruments on NASA's Voyagers, Galileo, Cassini and other spacecraft, University of Iowa physicist Dr. Don Gurnett recorded waves that course through outer space. Gurnett converted the plasma waves into sounds which inspired a 10-movement musical composition called "Sun Rings." Sample the sounds from Galileo, Voyager and Cassini. (Full Story)"
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NASA Music Out of This World More

NASA Music Out of This World

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  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26, 2002 @07:22AM (#4536207)
    Now we'll get sued by the Alien RIAA.
    • I thought aliens like KaZaAm -- preferably on a planetary scale.

      Anyway, they really should rethink their whole business model. Going after their customers with beam weapons is just plain stupid.

  • In space... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26, 2002 @07:24AM (#4536211)
    no one can hear your 10-movement musical composition

  • That's odd (Score:5, Funny)

    by Salsaman ( 141471 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @07:26AM (#4536214) Homepage
    I played one of the wavs backwards, and I could distinctly hear the words "European Space Agency engineers are weenies".

  • and then (Score:3, Funny)

    by chamenos ( 541447 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @07:29AM (#4536219)
    we'll finally find out where celine dion really came from, won't we? and as usual, canada would be really sorry about all the inconvenience they caused. mmhmm...

    kthxbye~!

  • 10-movement musical composition called "Sun Rings. (Score:5, Funny)

    by 3-State Bit ( 225583 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @07:38AM (#4536233)
    insert something about holst.

  • Riley listened carefully to some crackling and squealing patterns from the magnetic field the Galileo spacecraft discovered surrounding Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. "It sounded to me like a voice saying, 'beebopterismo,' so that's the starting point for one of the movements," he said.

    I think someone's been reading a little too much of the Ringworld series.

  • Was it just me, or did the recording of the spacecraft's exodus from Ganymede's magnetic pole sound a lot like those underwater whale recordings?

    At the beginning, I think that was Qo'noS exploding or something. Spilled tea all over my tunic.

  • Thats not space (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26, 2002 @07:44AM (#4536242)
    thats just

    cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

  • The best part (Score:5, Funny)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @07:45AM (#4536243) Journal
    ...with stories from space like this, is that they could as well let you download a sample made of the scientist's toilet experience, and no-one would notice any difference. Anyway, listening to this is very fancy....because... you know... it's from space - it must be awesome!

  • bah. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Inominate ( 412637 )
    Well it beats the silent "music".
    But not by much.

  • astronomical percussion music (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hanwen ( 8589 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @08:00AM (#4536272) Homepage Journal
    Reminds me of a piece by Circus S, called Pulsar. It's a piece for 6 percussion players inspired by the sounds made by pulsar signals.

    See the circus S [circus-s.de] site.

    (Oh, actually, the composer is called
    Gérard Grisey and the piece Le Noir de l'Etoile (1989/90))

  • Wouldn't it be nice to have a "Full Story" link such as the one in the end of parent scoop, but along with the "Read more..." link & others. The story submitters could have an optional URL field on the submit page to fill, if the story clearly has a main URL (like most of them do). Just an idea.

  • some crackling and squealing patterns (Score:3, Funny)

    by techNETia ( 582498 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @08:02AM (#4536275)
    Riley listened carefully to some crackling and squealing patterns from the magnetic field the Galileo spacecraft discovered surrounding Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. "It sounded to me like a voice saying, 'beebopterismo,' [...]

    This guy should come over to the playground in my neighbourhood, he'll be able to record a lot of music! Beebopterismo's, hiphopterismo's, as much as he likes, and not to forget... the swing!!
  • ...in space everybody can hear you squeek. ;)

  • ...hear the aliens saying something about 'going to pick up L. Ron and his mates' in that when they play it backwards? Man, they're going to be pissed when they find that he's dead.

  • A CD has been out for years. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by taliver ( 174409 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @08:38AM (#4536325)
    I have a CD of the NASA voyager probe recordings. Sounds interesting at first, and then gets boring. The CD is 50 minutes long or so, and has a warning about the dangers of using heavy machinery while listening, since it puts people to sleep.

    Anyway, some sounds like whales, other parts sound like choirs from the movie 2001.

  • At least someone at NASA had the good taste to hire Kronos. If anyone can recreate those sounds, they can. I wonder when the CD will be avalible for public consumption... Esth
  • I listened to the samples from the various missions, and it sounds like any other radio noise you would get by playing with the tuning knob on an old radio. Some other sounds were very similar to the noises you can make by dragging your finger nail along a guitar string. I was greatly underwhelmed. I guess some people are just like, "if it comes from space it's cool". But it just sounded like noise to me.

  • If.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Frank of Earth ( 126705 ) <frank@@@fperkins...com> on Saturday October 26, 2002 @10:27AM (#4536557) Homepage Journal
    .. Lance made it into space, we could have had a quartet.

    Sample the sounds from Galileo, Voyager and Cassini and now featuring Lance Bass!
  • dude, i had the mp3s of this a month ago!

  • It's been done (Score:4, Informative)

    by Robotech_Master ( 14247 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @10:46AM (#4536612) Homepage Journal
    Dr. Fiorella Terenzi [fiorella.com], radio astronomer and musician, has already done this sort of thing. (Plus, as her collaboration with Thomas Dolby ("Quantum Mechanic") proves, she also has a great singing voice. :)

  • Ham Radio (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Servo ( 9177 ) <[moc.atonatut] [ta] [fgnirtsd]> on Saturday October 26, 2002 @10:47AM (#4536615) Journal
    As a kid, I used to take a ham radio (I forget what wavelengh, its been a while) and tune it to odd frequencies that produced weird rythmic pulses. It was probably just interference from nearby electronics, but it was fun to listen to.

    Those sound bites remind me of what I used to listen to as a kid. Music to my ears!
  • well, at least this [uiowa.edu] sounds better than when i decided to translate the windows binaries into sound . . .

  • Previous Story (Score:4, Informative)

    by gorgon ( 12965 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @11:12AM (#4536681) Homepage Journal
    Slashdot posted an earlier story [slashdot.org] on this in July. Its amusing what some people can use for inspiration.

  • Kronos Quartet (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well I'd just like to say as a physics major at the University of Iowa and part of the Society of Physics Students that we are going to the performance tonight where the music is being played. It's called the Kronos Quartet and there wil be a meeting with the sound engineer of Hancher Auditorium before the show for all ticket holders in the Green Room.

  • This was down thirty years ago... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @12:12PM (#4536876) Homepage
    ....by Tomita. He sampled radio waves from a number of stars and used those as the base waveforms for some Moog synthesizer compositions.
  • Someone referred to NASA as the "world's largest sheltered workshop". Now I understand why.

    NASA had a huge brain drain in the early 1970s, when Apollo wound down, and never recovered. It's sad.

  • Whale songs? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Saturday October 26, 2002 @02:12PM (#4537447) Homepage
    It's actually whale songs coming from an alien probe. We've got to send Captain Kirk back in time to get 2 humpback whales to reply. Oh wait they're not extinct yet.
  • Is it just me or is this an obvious misuse of taxpayer money? Sure, this may have artistic value to some minority - but where is the scientific relevance of this endeavor that would justify spending your tax dollars on it?

    As long as we haven't covered the more important aspects of governmental responsibilities, like health insurance and flying to Mars, I'm deeply troubled by this - especially in view of the re-started deficit spending of the US.

    • "Basic science has always worked on the fact that we don't know the answer, hence we ask the question without having the answer."

      Even if discoveries like sounds in space are never applied, it gets the public interested in science. It might even inspire young minds to accomplish great works someday. Such was the case of a simple beeping noise in 1957 from Sputnik.

      http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit2002101 0. html
      http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit200 21017. html

  • Noise vs. Signal (Score:2, Informative)

    by tomem ( 542334 )
    NASA spends about 1-2% of it's budget in an effort to communicate its activities to the general public or students. This is considered money well-spent, since it is the public that has paid for exploration of space.

    Just as we cannot see outside the visible spectrum, we cannot hear plasma sound waves, which are mainly detected by electromagnetic antennae. But these sounds are just as informative about what is going on in our solar system as the Gamma, Xray or UV images that are brought back from space.

    For example, there is a steady rumble from the roiling solar atmosphere, which expands supersonically throughout the solar system. And when a spacecraft crosses a shock wave (upstream of all the planets), there is a huge sonic boom. Lightening and auroras produce a wide variety of sounds.

    So try to think of these sounds as having been recorded in the GREAT outdoors, and ask yourself what you might be hearing. One person's noise is another person's signal!

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