Mock-up of a proposed installation in which live chanting triggers the sounds of the stars. The orange squares are meditation cushions arranged in the shape of the Kepler telescope’s detectors, and the projection is of the star field from which the data originate – near the constellations of Cygnus (the swan) and Lyra (the harp). Image: Lucianne Walkowicz

Ever wondered what the music of the cosmos sounds like? You’re about to find out. Astrophysicist and TED Senior Fellow Lucianne Walkowicz works on the Kepler mission, looking at a patch of our galaxy to learn about stars and their planets. During an interview at TED2013, she mentioned that she is also an artist and has begun composing music woven from star data, after feeling inspired by the work of Fellows like data artist Julie Freeman. Here, she tells us how this is done:

“One of the things I like about science is that I can entertain myself by looking at the world and thinking about what’s happening at a microscopic or macroscopic level. It makes me feel like I have access to an additional dimension of information that’s around me all the time.

Recently I’ve started doing sound installations based on the data that I use for my own work. The Kepler mission finds planets and studies stars by measuring how stars get brighter and dimmer with time. Planets block some of the starlight as they pass in front of the star, making little dips in the stars’ brightness that tell us the planet is there.

However, stars periodically appear brighter and darker on their own because they have bright and dark patches on their surfaces caused by the star’s magnetic field. As it spins, we see light fluctuate as the patches rotate into and out of view – and the frequency of the fluctuation tells us how fast it’s spinning. To make things a bit more complicated, stars don’t rotate exactly like tops, in that different latitudes on the star spin at different rates – so usually there are several frequencies in the star’s light, and they can change and drift in time.

I take the data and search for which frequencies are present at different times, then scale them to frequencies the human ear can hear, using a sine-wave generator. Then I create tones that change with time to represent how the frequencies in the star are changing. A first pass sounds like this: in each second of playback, you hear the three strongest frequencies in the star for a day of real time. As you listen, the sounds change as the frequencies change.

Then I do some additional processing to get the effect I want. Usually I want to capture some echo to convey a sense of vast space, and some blending between notes to convey the dynamic nature of the features on the star’s surface that are creating the changes in the star’s light. It sounds like this:

I do this for multiple stars, and can then weave them into compositions along with other samples. It sounds like this:

In the following piece, Powerful Protectors, I’ve woven the sounds of two stars in with samples of Buddhist chanting around the world. The composition is about how people try to access deeper knowledge about our universe.

As a scientist, communicator and educator, I am driven by wanting to share with others how science offers access to a deeper dimension of information. But sometimes you end up at odds with people who have looked for other ways to explain or address mysteries in their lives, and in fact some people feel alienated from science.

Many people seek deeper meaning through religion, which is often (though not always) at odds with science. I chose these chants for their rhythmic qualities, similar in nature to the periodic frequencies of the stars I study. As the piece evolves, the sounds weave together – sometimes blending and complementing one another, but sometimes battling and drowning one another out.”

Gazing up at the night sky is always both humbling and thrilling. In this episode of TED Radio Hour, you’ll hear from speakers who share a sense of wonder and curiosity about our place in the universe. Phil Plait breaks down how we can defend Earth from an asteroid. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute explains why it’s crucial for humans here on earth to continue searching for sentient beings in the cosmos. And Cosmologist Brian Greene unravels the strange tale of dark matter and why our universe may be one of the many in the “multiverse.”

Check your local NPR schedule to find out when the show airs today, or listen via NPR’s website »

Or head to iTunes where the podcast is available now »

Honor Harger: A history of the universe in sound

Today’s TED Weekends on the Huffington Post explores the soundtrack of our universe, featuring essays from Harger and others. Below, find excerpts from three for your reading pleasure.

Honor Harger: Tuning Into the Universe

Images of space are ubiquitous in our lives. We have been surrounded by stunning portrayals of our own solar system and beyond for generations. But in popular culture, we have no sense of what space sounds like. And indeed, most people associate space with silence.

There are, of course, perfectly valid scientific reasons for assuming so. Space is a vacuum. But through radio, we can listen to the Sun’s fizzling solar flares, the roaring waves and spitting fire of Jupiter’s stormy interactions with its moon Io, pulsars’ metronomic beats, or the eerie melodic shimmer of a whistler in the magnetosphere. Read the full essay »

Mario Livio: What Is the Color of the Universe?

Honor Harger’s TED Talk is on radio astronomy, or, in some sense, the “sound” of the universe (even though radio waves are really electromagnetic radiation, just like light). Can we, however, say what the color of the universe is? To answer this question, we must first establish what we actually mean by the “color of the universe.” A reasonable definition would be to add up all the visible radiation emitted by a very large number of galaxies in a huge cosmic volume, and to determine how all of that light might be perceived by the human eye. This is precisely what astronomers Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry attempted to do in 2002. Using a survey of more than 200,000 galaxies (the “2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey”) and reaching to distances of a few billion light-years, they constructed the distribution of the colors (the spectrum) the eye would see if all that light were to be separated into its components by passing it through a prism.

Since our universe is expanding, light from distant galaxies is stretched to longer (redder) wavelengths (a phenomenon known as redshift). The farther away the galaxy, the greater the amount of stretching that occurs. Glazebrook and Baldry removed this effect before combining all the light to form a smoothed-out average color. Read the full essay »

Seth Shostak: Celestial Sound Effects

Remember the tag line for the 1979 sci-fi flick Alien? It was boldly emblazoned on the film’s advertising posters, and helpfully informed the public that “in space, no one can hear you scream.”

Well, of course that’s true; at least if you’re floating around without your protective helmet and its built-in walkie-talkie. But then again if you’re bare-headed in space, the fact that no one can hear the noises you’re making is scarcely your biggest problem.

Nonetheless, there’s a widespread perception that space — which after all, is mostly air-free — is as silent as the shadows. Read the full essay »

Ancient clues
Five fascinating talks by archaeologists and evolutionary biologists about humanity’s beginnings and journey.

Planes, trains and automobiles
Drive a plane? Race a car with your eyes closed? Fly? 11 innovators in transportation show that getting from point A to point B doesn’t have to be boring.

Are we alone in the universe?
Can it really be possible that Earth is only life-sustaining planet in existence? These 5 speakers think there might just be something or someone else out there, and urge us not to stop the search.

Astronomer Jill Tarter wants us all to ask the question, “Are we alone?” As director of the SETI Institute (it stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), Tarter is dedicated to seeking the answer, as well as to imparting upon one and all the importance of the search. In 2009, Tarter was awarded the prestigious TED Prize and founded the website SETILive.org, where people from around the world can register and help with the hunt for alien signals. Tarter’s wish: to “empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company.” Ruling out extraterrestrial intelligence at our current point of research, Tarter says, would be akin to scooping one glass of water from the ocean and concluding that there are no fish.

In the three years since Tarter’s TED Prize, the SETI Institute has continued its search, amassed a huge wealth of data and even begun identifying Earth-like planets. They’ve also continued their mission of outreaching their message and educating the public about the full scale of possibilities out there. To that end, Tarter created the TED-Ed lesson, “Calculating the Odds of Intelligent Alien Life,” stressing the full scope of how much is left to be discovered.

But SETI, like many scientific endeavors, has struggled with persistent funding problems. Their newest initiative is a partnership with Uwingu, a private company whose mission is to create a new way to fund research. SETI and Uwingu have been working on apps that will support space exploration as they educate. However, Uwingu needs the funds to launch their products. The company is looking to crowdsource $75K through IndieGoGo.com before September 14. Which means that you can pitch in to help.

Below, read an impassioned letter from Jill Tarter about why the success of this fundraising effort is so crucial, and so exciting.

 ”We all have a vested interest in this one — let’s get Uwingu launched!

Independent of the November presidential election results, future funding for scientific research (especially curiosity-driven, space-related exploration, research and education) will be declining into the foreseeable future.  The drop will be steeper if sequestration is triggered in the federal budget process.  As we wring our hands and lament one another, the phrase ‘alternative funding approaches’ repeatedly crops up in the conversation. But who or what are these?  And how do we access them?  Is there any there, there?

Uwingu LLC is doing more than wringing their collective hands — they are trying to become a source of alternative funding for us! 

This small startup intends to launch their product line in late October (just in time for the Christmas shopping season) and then pool the profits from their marketing efforts to create a fund whose main function will be to make research grants to those of us who can make the best cases for our research proposals.  Will it work?  Who knows? The folks behind this are some of the superstars in our astronomical universe (Alan Stern, Geoff Marcy and a handful of others), but that doesn’t mean they will succeed at making money. Can they really create something like an ‘Angry Birds for space’?  Certainly they won’t succeed if they can’t get started.

Uwingu envisions a $10M-100M annual portfolio for grant making.  That’s small compared with NASA or NIH research budgets, but significant on the scale of NSF astronomy, and I’ll bet it could nicely finance some of your own research ambitions.  But there’s a HUGE long way from here to that lofty goal.  As with any startup, funds are needed to provide early support for the team until receipts from sales start paying the bills and earning a profit.  I want to give them a chance, and I hope you’ll join me.  Uwingu estimates that they will need $75,000 to get started and they are trying to raise that money by crowdfunding at Indiegogo.com.  There are only 7 days left to that campaign, and they still need to raise another $40,000.  You can help them, and perhaps also help our SETI team at the SETI Institute.

Uwingu will evenly split every dollar they raise above their $75,000 threshold with us.  So I’ve got a very personal and vested interest in reaching out to you to become a supporter of this new venture.  Our own SETI team is in dire need of funding — these early returns will be most welcome — but it is the future opportunities that have compelled me to work with Uwingu rather than just asking for your direct support of SETI research and the Allen Telescope Array.  Bricks and mortar, or in our case antennas, are known to be much easier philanthropic ‘sells’ than funding for annual operations and upkeep. Many of you helped us out last summer when we asked for additional funds to cover the expenses of bringing the ATA out of the hibernation necessitated by the withdrawal of our UC Berkeley operating partners when they ran out of funding.  We are back on the air at the ATA studying all the newly discovered exoplanets!  SRI International Inc. is our new partner in the array, but we still need to find funding for our small team of SETI researchers who are constantly coming up with ideas of how to improve the ongoing searches.  We will need these funds this year, and next, and on into the future.  As part of our overall fundraising portfolio, it would be wonderful to be able to propose to the Uwingu Fund for supporting our team each year, and implementing their clever ideas.

Entrepreneurial space ventures intend to make a profit for their shareholders and founders — and in doing so change the way we access space.  Uwingu LLC intends to make a profit for those of us wanting to pursue space exploration, research and education.  Please help them and our SETI team by over subscribing this round of crowdsource fundraising.  Let’s start creating those necessary ‘alternative funding approaches’ today.” 

Become a Uwingu sponsor by heading to this website.