NASA telescope data becomes music you can play

For millennia, musicians have regarded to the heavens for inspiration. Now a brand new collaboration is enabling precise information from NASA telescopes for use as the premise for authentic music that may be performed by people.

Since 2020, the “sonification” project at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Middle has translated the digital data taken by telescopes into notes and sounds. This course of permits the listener to expertise the info by way of the sense of listening to as a substitute of seeing it as photographs, a extra frequent method to current astronomical data.

A brand new phase of the sonification mission takes the info into totally different territory. Working with composer Sophie Kastner, the group has developed variations of the info that can be played by musicians.

“It is like a writing a fictional story that’s largely primarily based on actual information,” mentioned Kastner. “We’re taking the info from space that has been translated into sound and placing a brand new and human twist on it.”

This pilot program focuses on information from a small area on the middle of our Milky Way galaxy the place a supermassive black hole resides. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble House Telescope, and retired Spitzer House Telescope have all studied this space, which spans about 400 light-years throughout.

“We have been working with these information, taken in X-ray, seen, and infrared mild, for years,” mentioned Kimberly Arcand, Chandra visualization and rising know-how scientist. “Translating these information into sound was an enormous step, and now with Sophie we’re once more making an attempt one thing fully new for us.”

Within the information sonification course of, computer systems use algorithms to mathematically map the digital information from these telescopes to sounds that people can understand. Human musicians, nevertheless, have totally different capabilities than computer systems.

Kastner selected to give attention to small sections of the image as a way to make the info extra playable for individuals. This additionally allowed her to create spotlights on sure elements of the picture which are simply missed when the complete sonification is performed.

“I like to think about it as creating brief vignettes of the info, and approaching it nearly as if I used to be writing a movie rating for the picture,” mentioned Kastner. “I wished to attract listener’s consideration to smaller occasions within the higher information set.”

The results of this trial mission is a brand new composition primarily based upon and influenced by actual information from NASA telescopes, however with a human take.

“In some methods, that is simply one other manner for people to work together with the evening sky simply as they’ve all through recorded historical past,” says Arcand. “We’re utilizing totally different instruments however the idea of being impressed by the heavens to make artwork stays the identical.”

Kastner hopes to develop this pilot composition mission to different objects in Chandra’s information sonification assortment. She can be wanting to usher in different musical collaborators who’re considering utilizing the info of their items.

Sophie Kastner’s Galactic Middle piece is entitled “The place Parallel Traces Converge.” In case you are a musician who needs to attempt enjoying this sonification at residence, try the sheet music at: https://chandra.si.edu/sound/symphony.html.

The piece was recorded by Montreal primarily based Ensemble Éclat performed by Charles-Eric LaFontaine on July 19, 2023 at McGill College.