posted 12/10/2007 (Mon) @ 04:37 am
>>> Science
The planets sing to one another
Here is the sound of Saturn, frequency shifted down by a factor of 44 to make it audible to human ears. Seventy-three seconds in the recording corresponds to twenty-seven minutes of Saturn’s opera.
Radio waves are emitted by Saturn’s auroras at its northern and southern poles. Earth’s would sound similar. As it turns out, they sound like the theremin soundtrack to Forbidden Planet.
More romantically, it is the sound of the planets singing to each other, as astronomer Johannes Kepler claimed to be so in his Harmonices Mundi (Latin for “The Harmony of the World”):
“The Earth sings Mi, Fa, Mi: you may infer even from the syllables that in this our home misery and famine hold sway.”
… an idea which I ultimately find to be infinitely more fascinating than the music on The Receiving End of Sirens’ passable, but disappointing 2007 release, The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi.
Tags: art, cool, Music, Science
