Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-6278)
RELEASE: 02-207
Gurnett converted the recorded plasma waves into sounds, much as a receiver
turns radio waves into sound waves. "I've got a cardboard box full of
cassette tapes of sounds that I've collected over nearly 40 years," he
said.
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. "Beebopterismo," comes just before movements named "Planet Elf
Sindoori" and "Earth Whistlers," Riley said.
The NASA Art Program contacted David Harrington, the Kronos Quartet's
artistic director, two years ago with a proposal to create music inspired
by Gurnett's research. NASA and the University of Iowa's Hancher Auditorium
co-commissioned the work. Part of NASA's mission is to inspire future
explorers, and the Art Program is one of many ways NASA reaches the public.
The Kronos Quartet has scheduled performances of "Sun Rings" in 2003 in
Houston, San Francisco, and London.
Sound from Voyager's passage through the bow shock of the solar wind
against Jupiter's magnetosphere is at:
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plasma-
wave/tutorial/voyager1/jupiter/bowshock/text.html
Sound from Cassini of the interaction between the solar wind and Jupiter's
magnetosphere is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby/gallery/gl_pages/rpws_release5.html
The NASA Art Program has been commissioning artists to document the Agency
for over 40 years. It also supports art projects designed to reach diverse
communities across the country. For more information about the NASA Art
Program, contact Bertram Ulrich, Curator, at 202/358-1713.
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