We have a pretty good idea as to what Mars looks like, thanks to telescopes, satellites and rovers on the ground – it’s red, it’s dusty, it’s barren. But what does it sound like?
There are many ways to capture audio from Mars. One way to use these Martian sounds is to make music. One composer is harnessing those auditory captures from Mars into a new symphony. The art and science of out of this world sounds.
Mars Symphony is a new work by composer David Ibbett that harnesses the sounds of Mars and transforms them into musical instruments and melodies.
Ahead of its debut at the Museum of Science in Boston, Ibbett spoke about his inspiration for scientific symphonies.
"It's really a journey through my engaging with Mars, and I'm hoping that, like me, people will gain just such an appreciation and fascination for the planets," Ibbett said. "It is not just a place that we could build a space station, maybe it's a planet with its own fascinating history, and area, geography, Martian geography."
This isn’t the first cosmic work for Ibbett. He composed Black Hole Symphony, transforming the destructive waves formed by Black Holes into a musical piece.
A microphone on Mars is capturing fascinating sounds of the planet. Installed on the SuperCam instrument, this tiny mic designed for hearing aids has captured Marian winds and the sounds of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter flying on the red planet.
Andy Bellivida is with Knowles, the company that developed the tech. The journey of these microphones started with trying to improve hearing aids. Today, the technology has been developed into mics that can detect sounds on planets within our galaxies.
"Our company's founder, who knows when the transistor was invented, saw immediately the application to miniaturize hearing aids...and so after he developed those, really those same characteristics would come to appeal to NASA when they were also required to provide communications and very miniature basis," Bellivida said. "And actually, our first application for NASA was for the Apollo missions."
