Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Space agencies frequently release a plethora of amazing photographs depicting the incredible phenomena they study and the breathtaking discoveries that they make, but what about giving a little love to the other four senses? The ESA’s Soundcloud page does just that. We think someone could make a sick electronic song using all of these clips.
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According to the Daily Mail, the agency has created a collection of audio clips from the various missions they are involved with, including one sound bite that uses audio data collected by the Huygens probe as it landed on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan on January 14, 2005.
The probe was outfitted with acoustic sensors on its Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI), which recorded the surroundings as the spacecraft made its descent. The ESA explained that the recordings provided “a realistic reproduction of what a traveler on board Huygens would have heard during one minute of the descent through Titan’s atmosphere.”
The ESA explained that the recording “is a laboratory reconstruction of the sounds heard by Huygens’ microphones. Several sound samples, taken at different times during the descent, are here combined together.” A related sound bite was produced “by converting into audible sounds some of the radar echoes received by Huygens during the last few kilometers of its descent onto Titan. As the probe approaches the ground, both the pitch and intensity increase.”
[STORY: Voyager 1 probe detects ‘interstellar’ music]
Another recording features the sounds of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as detected by the Rosetta spacecraft and Philae probe. The UK newspaper said that the Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) recorded oscillations in the comet’s magnetic field at 40 to 50 millihertz.
Comet sings us the song of its people
“The comet seems to be emitting a ‘song’ in the form of oscillations in the magnetic field in the comet’s environment,” the agency explained. “To make the music audible to the human ear, the frequencies have been increased in this recording. This sonification of the [magnetometer] data was compiled by German composer Manuel Senfft (www.tagirijus.de).” This one is the most eerie and it sounds like an upset alien. It gives us the willies.
Philae’s landing on the comet’s surface back on November 2014 can also be heard in a recording that depicts the mechanical vibrations made during its touchdown. The lander went on to bounce twice before coming to rest in an unknown location on 67P, but the Soundcloud page allows you to hear what the conclusion of the historic first-ever comet-landing mission sounds like.
[STORY: Revealing the sounds of space]
“Sensors in the feet of Rosetta’s lander Philae have recorded the sound of touchdown as it first came into contact with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko,” the agency said. “The instrument, SESAME-CASSE, was turned on during the descent and clearly registered the first touchdown as Philae came into contact with the comet, in the form of vibrations detected in the soles of the lander’s feet… No modification was necessary except for some technical adjustments.”
The recent launch of a Soyuz rocket that took two European satellites into orbit is also featured on the page, according to the Daily Mail. So are the launches of the Sentinel-1A radar imaging satellite and the 1999 launch of the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, as well as the Mars Express flyby of the moon Phobos, which took place on the December 29, 2013.
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