The Sound of Saturn's Rings

By Nancy Atkinson - January 20, 2010 at 2:29 PM UTC | Planetary Science

This wonderful video was posted by

Jennifer Ouellette on Discovery News,

and I just had to share it. The sounds are actual recordings picked up by the Cassini spacecraft. I have heard the eerie audio before, but never had previously seen it paired up with moving images from the mission. The radio emissions, called Saturn kilometric radiation, are generated along with Saturn's auroras, or northern and southern lights. Cassini's Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument takes high-resolution measurements that allow scientists to convert the radio waves into audio recordings by shifting the frequencies down into the audio frequency range.

You can hear the raw audio at this website from the University of Iowa.

A physicist there, Don Gurnett, builds plasma wave receivers for NASA, and he's been collecting recordings of space sounds from all the major missions, including Voyager I, Galileo, and Cassini.

These recording inspired composer Terry Riley to put together a suite of space music for the

Kronos Quartet

called "Sun Rings." I had the opportunity to see a live performance, which combines live music, the sounds from space and images from space projected in the background, and it is quite striking. You can hear samples in this

link from NPR.

Riley has said, "Space is surely the realm of dreams and imagination and a fertile feeding ground for poets and musicians."

Ouellete mentioned another piece of music inspired by Saturn's rings. There is a new DVD now available featuring images of Saturn's rings set a 10-minute-long pice called "Anillos" ("rings" in Spanish), composed by Grammy-nominated Cornell University music professor Roberto Sierra in 2008 for the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences. You can hear samples of the music

at this link,

and if you like it, you can buy the "Anillos" DVD from

Buffalo Street Books

for $15, just by emailing [email protected].

Source:

Discovery Space

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com