CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) 鈥 Strauss鈥 鈥淏lue Danube鈥 is heading into space this month to mark the 200th anniversary of the waltz king’s birth.
The classical piece will be as it’s performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The celestial send-off on May 31 鈥 livestreamed with free public screenings in Vienna, Madrid and New York 鈥 also will celebrate the founding 50 years ago.
Although the music could be converted into radio signals in real time, according to officials, ESA will relay a pre-recorded version from the orchestra’s rehearsal the day before to avoid any technical issues. The live performance will provide the accompaniment.
The radio signals will hurtle away at the speed of light, or a mind-blowing 670 million mph (more than 1 billion kph).
That will put the music past the moon in 1 1/2 seconds, past Mars in 4 1/2 minutes, past Jupiter in 37 minutes and past Neptune in four hours. Within 23 hours, the signals will be as far from Earth as NASA鈥檚 Voyager 1, the world’s most distant spacecraft at more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) in interstellar space.
NASA also celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008 by transmitting a song directly into deep space: the Beatles’ 鈥淎cross the Universe.鈥 And last year, NASA beamed up Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” toward Venus.
Music has even flowed from another planet to Earth 鈥 courtesy of a NASA Mars rover. Flight controllers at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent a recording of will.i.am’s 鈥淩each for the Stars鈥 to Curiosity in 2012 and the rover relayed it back.
These are all deep-space transmissions as opposed to the melodies streaming between NASA’s Mission Control and orbiting crews since the mid-1960s.
Now it’s Strauss’ turn, after getting passed over for the Voyager Golden Records nearly a half-century ago.
Launched in 1977, NASA’s twin Voyagers 1 and 2 each carry a gold-plated copper phonograph record, along with a stylus and playing instructions for anyone or anything out there.
The records contain sounds and images of Earth as well as 90 minutes of music. The late astronomer Carl Sagan led the committee that chose Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Stravinsky pieces, along with modern and Indigenous selections.
Among those skipped was Johann Strauss II, whose 鈥淏lue Danube鈥 graced Stanley Kubrick鈥檚 1968 sci-fi opus 鈥2001: A Space Odyssey.鈥
The tourist board in Vienna, where Strauss was born on Oct. 25, 1825, said it aims to correct this 鈥渃osmic mistake鈥 by sending the 鈥渢he most famous of all waltzes” to its destined home among the stars.
ESA鈥檚 big radio antenna in Spain, part of the space agency鈥檚 deep-space network, will do the honors. The dish will be pointed in the direction of Voyager 1 so the 鈥淏lue Danube鈥 heads that way.
鈥淢usic connects us all through time and space in a very particular way,鈥 ESA鈥檚 director general Josef Aschbacher said in a statement. 鈥淭he European Space Agency is pleased to share the stage with Johann Strauss II and open the imaginations of future space scientists and explorers who may one day journey to the anthem of space.鈥
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