First Recordings Of The Cosmic Symphony : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

First Recordings Of The Cosmic Symphony : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR: Today's guest post comes from Paul Green, an astrophyscist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. Dr. Green studies quasars, stars and helps to manage the science operations of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. In his other life he is also the bassist for The Wicked Pickers, a jazz/folk band in the Boston area.



The sky is alive with the sound of music. The Sun rings like a bell. RR Lyrae stars throb like a disco. Eclipsing binary stars revolve in rhythmic pulsations. Supermassive black holes in the cores of galaxies thrum in crescendos of rumbling bass. If we could hear all this music, it might have driven us mad with its bewildering complexity. But empty space transmits no sound, so all we heard was silence. Until now.