HARP in Space!
This might be old news to you, but I just learned that NASA has a HARP!
Ok, for NASA, HARP means Heliophysics Audified: Resonances in Plasmas. What?
Loads of science-y words to say Hearing the activity of the Sun.
No, really. The idea is to capture data from the sun and the plasma it puts out, and then listen to it to find patterns. Patterns that would be harder (or impossible) to find visually. Or by a computer algorithm.
The sounds represent the same thing as you see as the Aurora Borealis – how cool is that?!
As musicians we know all about patterns in sound. Sound patterns are our stock in trade! And NASA is inviting you to participate to help explore the data!
This is one of a number of NASA projects open to Citizen Scientists to help them analyze data. Data is something they have tons of so they need help getting it all poked at. They provide the open-source tool with which you can poke at (and possibly reveal) what’s hiding in the data from space. They point out that it’s like using sonar to see the ocean. They’ll even train you to find stuff so you can identify what they are looking for. You could find something no one else has identified – again, how cool is that?
Would you like to be a NASA citizen scientist and participate in the HARP project? If this is interesting to you, you could easily participate! You can get more information here or sign up to participate here.
Do you think this is as cool as I do? I’d love to know if you decide to participate – and what you find! Let me know in the comments!
Comments
9 responses to “HARP in Space!”
Thank you, Jen. Passed info on to Brian. Bet he would love to be involved.
Hope he doesn’t find Trombone in Space! ????
What a fabulous find Jen- I’m going to do it! I may even get Tom involved cuz I’m sure I’ll need some man-splaining to figure it out????
Perfect ????
“The Music of the Spheres” is a longstanding obsession for many! Back in the 1970s one of my much beloved Yale professors — Willie Ruff, an amazing jazz musician, teacher, and scholar — worked with one of Yales geophysicists to put into music Johannes Kepler’s 1619 Treatise on The Harmony of the World. Listen to a bit of it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaqGbb7VGSk&t=41s
And if you have time you can watch this longer interview with Willie about his Kepler Project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArXrDAlGlYU
Wow! Cool!
There have been harps in space forever – the heavens are full of harp playing angels (as is earth!).
????
fabulous! My bro is a jazz guitarist- i’ll send this to him!