Have you ever thought about hearing a song coming directly from space? Well, that’s what happened last Saturday in May, when the Voyager 1 probe intercepted a message that came from 25 billion kilometers away from Earth. Many thought it was some kind of operational command or even a historical novelty, but reality surprised everyone when scientists came across a song.
Do you happen to know Voyager 1?
Before we can decipher what this music was that was intercepted and if it had any meaning, we need to look at the object that made all this possible: Voyager 1. Back in 1977, NASA designed this probe with the aim of studying other planets in the Solar System – and beyond. And it did so successfully, you see? First, it managed to fly over Jupiter and Saturn, until it passed what experts call the heliosphere, which is nothing more than the region of influence of our Sun, and then it ventured into interstellar space.
Today, it is already very far from us, we are talking about 24.8 billion kilometers from Earth, which is more than 166 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is worth remembering that no other object created by us is further away.
All this distance becomes a challenge for sending messages back and forth. Just to give you an idea, any radio signal sent from us here on Earth to there takes about 23 hours to reach. Of course, in addition to all this distance, Voyager 1 is already old, operates with limited systems and an antenna of only 3.7 meters, but it remains firm in its mission of receiving and sending signals. It was with this in mind (and through it) that ESA decided to do something special, and that is where music comes into play.
The song that traveled 25 km away from Earth
You might be wondering: what does ESA have to do with this intergalactic music thing? Well, it wanted to pay tribute… That’s because on June 1st, the agency turns 50 and, along with that, it also turns 200 years since the birth of composer Johann Strauss II. In other words, they combined business with pleasure and transmitted a live performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra directly into space — and of course, the probe responsible for this was Voyager 1 (this after it had returned to service after almost 20 years).
And what was the song? It was the waltz, The Blue Danube (An der Schönen Blauen Donau), composed by Strauss in 1866. If you don’t know it, it’s worth mentioning that this song became very famous for representing space. Another interesting fact is that this became even more established after being used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick.
The song that became a message to the unknown in space
What many people wondered was the reason for this tribute, because, let’s face it, it’s not something that happens every day, so the authors of the project even explained (after joking that this was used to make aliens dance):
“The beauty of this mission lies in its boundless imagination and optimism. Music is a universal language – transcending borders, species and even galaxies. If there are life forms out there, perhaps they sense the joy, elegance and rhythm of humanity itself, and perhaps they respond with a dance of their own”
Apart from that, it also served to show how Voyager 1, even at almost 50 years old (47 to be more exact), navigating through a solitary environment, continues to inspire many people, and this time it was from music – even after “waking up” after almost two decades of inactivity, when everyone already thought it would not do this anymore.
