The Solar Song
2025
Light on surface and sound
Dimensions variable
conceptual, motion, audio
Space is largely a vacuum, meaning there is not enough matter to propagate sound waves, which also have frequencies too low to be perceived by the human ear. However, in 1996, a team of astronomers at the Stanford Solar Center recorded acoustic pressure waves on the Sun by tracking movements on its surface using the SOHO spacecraft by ESA and NASA, which orbits the Sun 1,600,000 km from Earth. To make the solar song audible, the waves were accelerated 42,000 times and 40 days of vibrations were compressed into a few seconds
2025
Light on surface and sound
Dimensions variable
conceptual, motion, audio
Space is largely a vacuum, meaning there is not enough matter to propagate sound waves, which also have frequencies too low to be perceived by the human ear. However, in 1996, a team of astronomers at the Stanford Solar Center recorded acoustic pressure waves on the Sun by tracking movements on its surface using the SOHO spacecraft by ESA and NASA, which orbits the Sun 1,600,000 km from Earth. To make the solar song audible, the waves were accelerated 42,000 times and 40 days of vibrations were compressed into a few seconds