BROADCASTING THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES Creating Radio Astronomy

摘要

Most people associate space with silence. In film and on television space is usually depicted as an aural void. However, in 1932, an American radio engineer named Karl Jansky made a monumental and accidental discovery. While trying to identify interference caused in shortwave radio transmissions, Jansky discovered that astronomical objects emit radiation. His discovery revealed that the universe has been broadcasting since the very beginning of time, continually communicating a cacophony of secrets.rnSince Jansky's breakthrough, a great percentage of our scientific understanding of space has been derived by monitoring electromagnetic energy from space, using radio telescopes. Radio telescopes are, in effect, "listening" to space. Yet, despite the fact that data we glean from listening to space is every bit as significant and important to our comprehension of the Universe as more traditionally understood optical observation, most people still tend to have no sense of what space might sound like.rnThe idea of making astronomical space audible has inspired the new media artists, r a d i o q u alia , to attempt to develop a sonic poetic of space. Their Radio Astronomy project takes live sounds from radio telescopes and broadcasts this audio over the internet and on FM radio, making audible the supposed silence of sidereal space. Created in collaboration with astronomers, engineers, radio and television stations worldwide, the project seeks to enable listeners to tune into different celestial frequencies, hearing planets, stars, and the constant hiss of cosmic noise. It aims to reveal the sonic character of objects in our Universe, and in the process perhaps make these phenomena more tangible and comprehensible. Offering listeners direct feeds from astronomical institutes such as NASA's Radio Jove network in the USA, the Windward Community College Radio Observatory in Hawaii, USA and the Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre in Latvia, the project is literally a radio station devoted to broadcasting sounds from outer space.