A new album creates a sound journey through our cosmos

A new free online album takes listeners on a cosmic and sonic journey through space, including past two giant planets in our solar system, a galactic pulsar, and colliding black holes.

Celestial Incantations combines the mysterious “sounds of space” with a massive musical palette, comprising orchestral and traditional instruments and electronics.

The new album is from the international group Sounds of Space, bringing together Associate Professor Kim Cunio of the Australian National University, British artist Diana Scarborough and Dr Nigel Meredith of the British Antarctic Survey. It follows their first release, Aurora Musicalis.

Associate Professor Cunio said the new album charts a journey through some of the most mysterious and incredible examples of cosmic space and time across our universe.

“The space is vast and with this album we have the opportunity to really think about what this vastness means to us as we listen,” Associate Professor Cunio said. “We hope this album allows people to imagine time and space in the widest sense.”

Like the team’s debut album, Celestial Incantations’ tracks use the eerie, normally silent sounds of space to create music depicting interstellar travel, the slow dance of celestial bodies, the orbits of lone comets, and the bubbles of space. air escaping from old ice cores.

“We even take listeners to the violent scene of the super massive black hole collision,” said Dr Meredith.

“The fusion of two black holes was only captured several years ago thanks to the very first observation of gravitational waves, an almost incredible ripple in space and time. It was something Albert Einstein theorized about, but he doubted we could ever capture it. “

Dr Meredith said the team used electromagnetic and gravitational waves that travel vast distances across the Universe.

“Space is a vacuum and completely silent, without the capacity to transmit sound waves,” he said.

“In this album, we mainly hear the ‘sounds’ of space through the conversion of electromagnetic waves and gravitational waves into sound waves.”

Ms Scarborough said the celestial incantations came at a time when humans were inspired by a new era of space exploration and discovery.

“Scientists are proposing new theories about space-time, dark matter and our expanding universe based on gravitational wave data and satellite data.

“Our Celestial Incantations album is a musical cocoon transporting us from Earth to this new wilderness, giving listeners time to reflect to meditate on the wonders and mystery of the Universe.”

Associate Professor Cunio said the album also explores how humanity “imagined” the sounds of space over time.

“As a composer, I can almost hear Pythagoras laughing,” he said.

“Pythagoras believed he could hear the ‘Music of the Spheres’, a series of resonances and possibly even sounds related to the major celestial bodies.

“Now we can join Pythagoras in a big imagination thanks to the ability of computers to accelerate and translate these phenomena into our perceptual ranges.”

Celestial Incantations is available free online. It is based on the work of scientists from a number of institutions, including the British Antarctic Survey, the University of Iowa, the European Space Agency, the Jodrell Bank Observatory and the LIGO consortium.