music
Now, This Moon Mission Sounds Good
Sohini Chattopadhyay
Sohini Chattopadhyay
16 Sep, 2009
Now, you can make music on the moon. And you don’t need to be a multi-billionaire with tickets on the next space exploration trip for it
Now, you can make music on the moon. And you don’t need to be a multi-billionaire with tickets on the next space exploration trip for it. Automated music generator moonbell.com, in association with the Japanese aerospace exploration agency, Jaxa, uses the data generated by its satellite Kaguya and transforms it into musical intervals. There are two modes of playing: orbit play and free scratch, which puts the conductor’s baton in your hands. In orbit play, the music is produced by following the topography along Kaguya’s circular path around the moon. But the real fun is in free scratch, where you make music by scratching the surface of the moon by drawing your mouse over a picture of it. The website also has a few samples of moon music. We tried a piano creation and found it suitably ethereal and mystifying. Be warned though, the site doesn’t work very well on Mozilla and Explorer. The Safari browser on the Mac may be your best bet.
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