STEREO/IMPACT E/PO - Sounds Of Space

about

About Sounds Of Space

The "Sounds of Space" project is being developed to explore the connections between solar science and sound, to compare visual and aural representations of space data, mostly from NASA's STEREO mission, and to promote a better understanding of the Sun through stimulating interactive software. These software programs generate sounds through real-time processing of data previously collected from the Sun. All of the data is multichannel -- meaning that the experiments in space make measurements of multiple aspects of a solar wind property for any given moment in time. For example, the solar wind particle instrument measures particles at different energies and puts the measurements in different channels depending on their speed. We take this multiplicity of data and use it to control various parameters of the generated sound. A variation in one channel of the data might be used to control the pitch (how high or low), the amplitude (how loud or soft), or the rhythm for a portion of the overall sonic representation.

We have developed several computational tools to control, map, and sonify these data, i.e. convert these data to sound. The majority of our work has utilized the Max/MSP programming environment which allows for real-time user interaction with the sonification process. Through this interaction the user can become quickly engaged with the data and gain an depth of understanding not as easily attained through passive observation.

Please see the Misconception Alert below before listening to any of the sounds from space.

To hear the latest examples of our work, visit the latest web page, and for archived examples visit the examples web page. For even more sounds of space created by scientists and musicians around the world, visit our links page.

To delve into sonification, visit the programs page where it is possible to download the software programs we have created to listen to data a user has collected, solar wind particle data from ascii files, and solar wind particle data from graphical data and in stereo. This most recent work has relied on Spectrogram Image Analysis to be able to analyze data stored in diverse formats. By reading the changing color values represented in a spectrogram we are able to determine the number of channels and dynamically reconfigure the program to sonify accordingly.

On the programs page you will also find an example of the kinds of science center programs have created using these sonification software programs.

The sound waves page provides an introduction and web-related links to the physics of sound and of waves. The classroom page provides opportunities for using the idea of sonification in the classroom. This page will also host or link to lessons on the Sun and Coronal Mass Ejections.

Sonification Report: Status of the Field and Research Agenda
Report prepared for the National Science Foundation by members of the International Community for Auditory Display (ICAD).

Sonification Misconception Alert

Most of the sounds on these pages are not sound waves observed in space, i.e. most of the data are not of waves that travel through a medium by way of modifying the density of the medium. Rather, data from different regions in space, such as solar particles hitting a detector, have been converted into sound. This process is known as sonification. See our sonification page for a more detailed introduction to this concept.

Sounds Of Space People

Dr. Laura Peticolas
Education and Public Outreach Specialist

Dr. Peticolas is an educator and scientist with many years of experience in studying the aurora and in teaching physics to undergraduates, teachers, and the public. She creates high school and junior college lessons, in collaboration with teachers and the Science Education Gateway Program (SEGway) Education and outreach team at the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley. She also organizes and teaches at professional development workshops. As the lead E/PO personnel of the FAST mission and an E/PO specialist working on the NASA mission, STEREO-IMPACT E/PO efforts, she leverages efforts from multiple NASA missions that are studying everything from the Sun to auroras.

John MacCallum
Composer

John MacCallum, a PhD student in music composition with a background in signal processing and programming, is working to create software that will both grab real-time STEREO data and sonify the data. Over the past ten years, scientific and mathematical concepts have inspired is compositional work and continue to do so currently. His ability to not only convert the data into sound, but to evaluate it from an artistic perspective has been of great value to this project as we hope to bring the information we collect to life in a way that will inspire and excite the general public.

Marty Quinn
Composer

Marty Quinn works with scientists and museums to turn information and data into music. He feels that music is composed of a very rich palette of qualities upon which data may be mapped and thereby perceived by the brain through the auditory channel. Music stimulates cognition and memory, and offers those who are blind or visually handicapped the opportunity to understand information and gain knowledge in new ways. By working with scientists who are shedding new light on our world, and the museums and centers who are helping to disseminate it, he seeks to create innovative, pleasurable and accessible audio information presentation solutions for the public to "get it" by hearing. Whether online or live, his work makes science accessible to more people, and maybe, just maybe, its like listening to the music of the spheres. To learn more, visit his Design Rhythmics Sonification Research Lab web page.

Dr. Roberto Morales-Manzanares
Composer

Dr. Morales-Manzanares is interested in algorithmic, real-time and free-time composition. His musical knowledge in folkloric music from Mexico, combined with the classical training made possible to mature new instrumental techniques in Mexican harps, flute and piano. He earned a Ph.D. from the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at UC Berkeley in 2006. During this time, he helped develop the "beginning," "stereo," and "incandescence" software program for this project.

Morales has written music for theatre, dance, movies, TV and radio, and has been commissioned to write music for European and Mexican ensembles like LOOS, Wire Works and the Symphony Orchestra of Guanajuato. As a performer and improviser, Morales-Manzanares has participated on his own and collaborated with other composers such as Manuel Enriquez, George Lewis, Mari Kimura, David Wessel, Ake Parmerud, DJ Spooky among others, and participated in International festivals around Europe, US Mexico and Latin-America.

Currently he is member of the "Sistema Nacional de Creadores". His music can be found in ICMC recordings, Victo label www.victo.qc.ca (Leyendas in colaboration with Mari Kimura) and the most recent publications in Computer Music Journal.

Dr. David Bithell
Composer

Dr. Bithell is a composer/performer who is now at the College of Music at the University of North Texas. He earned a Ph.D in Music Composition in 2004 from the University of California, Berkeley from which he received his M.A. in 2001. He holds a B.A. summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego in Music with Honors in Composition. He studied composition and computer music with Edmund Campion, David Wessel, Cindy Cox, Brian Ferneyhough, and Roger Reynolds. He studied trumpet primarily with Edwin Harkins -- whose performance art duo [THE] has been very influential on his recent work. He helped develop the "beginning" and "stereo" software program for this project.

Dr. Bithell's recent work has been focused on the intersection between experimental music and theater. His genre-bending performances and compositions have always maintained a commitment to exposing new audiences to new media. The use of video, sets and lights, live processing of audio, design and construction of new acoustic instruments, and improvisation create abstract narratives that balance between the tragic and comic. To learn more, visit his College of Music at UNT website.

Dr. Janet Luhmann
STEREO/IMPACT Principle Investigator

Dr. Luhmann is a member of the Space Physics Research Group at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is a Senior Fellow. A major focus of her work has been the comparison of spacecraft observations with models of the solar wind interaction with the planets.

She is currently a member of the Cassini Saturn Orbiter Ion-Neutral Mass Spectrometer Team, and Principal Investigator for an experiment consortium providing plasma and field instrumentation for the STEREO mission.

Dr. Stuart Bale
STEREO/WAVES Co-Investigator

Dr. Stuart Bale is an Assistant Professor of Physics and does his research at the Space Sciences Laboratory. He is interested in plasma waves and particle energization in astrophysical an heliospheric plasmas, in particular, in situ observations of magnetic reconnection, collisionless shocks, and radio emission and nonlinear plasma processes.

Dr. Nahide Craig
SEGway Program Director Emeritus

Dr. Craig is the Director of the Science Education Gateway Program (SEGway) at the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley, funded by NASA. SEGway is a national collaboration of science museums, school districts, and NASA space science missions to bring current science research results into the classroom via the Internet.

A research astronomer with 10 years' involvement (1989-1999) in the EUVE Mission and the Experimental Astrophysics Groups, Dr. Craig has provided science support for both projects, obtaining ground-based observations of interstellar Na I, Ca II and Ti II. She has published more than a dozen refereed papers on topics in optical and EUVE astrophysics, including identification of EUVE sources and studies of late-type stars, cataclysmic variables, white dwarfs and local interstellar medium.

Ben Jacobs
Music Systems Programmer

Ben Jacobs is a software engineer based in San Francisco. Educated at Harvard College (B.A. in Computer Science, 1988), Ben has continued his studies with coursework in music theory, composition, and analysis at University of California Berkeley.

When not writing code, Ben keeps a full schedule of music performance and recording session work, utilizing an extensive personal collection of vintage electronic keyboard instruments and amplifiers.