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NASA Music Out of This World

Posted by michael on 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)"

11 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we'll get sued by the Alien RIAA.

  2. In space... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    no one can hear your 10-movement musical composition

  3. That's odd by Salsaman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I played one of the wavs backwards, and I could distinctly hear the words "European Space Agency engineers are weenies".

  4. 10-movement musical composition called "Sun Rings. by 3-State+Bit · · Score: 5, Funny

    insert something about holst.

  5. Thats not space by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    thats just

    cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

  6. The best part by jukal · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...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!

  7. astronomical percussion music by hanwen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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 site.

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

    --

    Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond

  8. It's been done by Robotech_Master · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, 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. :)

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
  9. Previous Story by gorgon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Slashdot posted an earlier story on this in July. Its amusing what some people can use for inspiration.

    --

    And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
    Berke Breathed
  10. This was down thirty years ago... by FFFish · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ....by Tomita. He sampled radio waves from a number of stars and used those as the base waveforms for some Moog synthesizer compositions.

    --

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  11. Whale songs? by Xpilot · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    --
    "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds