September 23, 2010
Tripping the sound fantastic
Astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell listening to the northern lights in Camden.
Whenever I tell people about our audio tours of the universe (which we hosted at Camden’s Roundhouse this past Sunday as part of the Turning Point festival, and back in June at the Stoke Newington International Airport) they almost always say:
“But isn’t space silent?”
Not if we know how to listen. With the right equipment we can use our ears as well as our eyes to probe the cosmos. The universe is full of sounds.
Telescopes allow us to capture radio waves emitted by stars across the galaxy and turn them into noises we can hear. And space is not – as popular misconception would have it – an empty “vacuum”. Gas and dust, albeit in small volumes, floats between the stars and can conduct sound waves back to us, such as from the rippling shearing surface of our sun.
Have a listen for yourself here, from the rattling of our atmosphere, to the eerie shrieks and whistles of the moons of Jupiter, to the buzzing chords of nebular clusters – out to the farthest reaches of space and the deepest note in the universe.
Astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell took us on a guided tour this past Sunday through the streets of Camden, explaining what these strange noises have taught us about what lies above our heads.
Check out what he had to say about his first space walk with us in Stoke Newington here.
Space, it turns out, is not so silent after all – we just need to know how to listen.
By Zoe
September 9, 2010
Turning Point @ The Round House
Stellar clusters - what they sound like. Photo courtesy of NASA
As part of the Turning Point Festival at London’s historic Roundhouse, we will be hosting our Sounds of the Universe tours with astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell.
The author and scientist will also tell us how he searches for life on other planets, what it might look like if (or when?) we find it, and how close we might actually be to discovering that we are not alone in the universe.
Find us Sunday, September 19th, in The Clore.
Sounds of the Universe Walks: 4pm & 5:30pm
Astrobiology Talk: 5pm
Lewis on an audio tour of the stars in Stoke Newington with us this past June at the Stoke Newington International Airport. Photo Credit: Rita Platts
September 7, 2010
Normally I don’t bother with umbrellas
A guest post by cosmologist Andrew Pontzen, on his experience with us at the Green Man festival in Wales.
I’d like to begin by thanking a cafe in Cambridge.
It lends, free of charge, umbrellas to its patrons. Not just any umbrellas: these are the kind of ten-feet-wide uber-umbrellas that you don’t want to be stuck walking behind.
Now, it’s true that umbrellas are more-or-less all the cafe has going for it. In fact, I’m not about to take back the umbrella, mainly because I can’t face going back to the cafe. But nonetheless, that cafe made a crucial contribution to my enjoyment of this year’s Green Man Festival in Wales. I just wanted to acknowledge that up-front.
Normally I don’t bother with umbrellas. Unwieldy. A simple coat will do.
But when Wales has rain, it seems, it’s not just any rain: it’s the kind of rain that drenches you in less than a minute. It’s the kind of rain that a raincoat just can’t protect against. It’s the kind of rain, in short, that only a ten-foot uber-umbrella can combat.
And now I have such an umbrella in my car, waiting for the post-apocalyptic day when I’ll revisit ‘cafe underwhelming’ for the last remaining undercooked baked potato in existence. (I will return the umbrella then.)
Talking about science to small groups at a music festival sounds crazy until you consider the possibility of talking to small groups about science at a music festival in the pouring rain, while using an iPad to show pictures and an iPod to play Lewis Dartnell’s ‘Sounds of the Universe’. While walking through the mud next to Mia (in a spacesuit painted in water-soluble shiny paint). After delivering an introductory talk in a yurt tent powered by people pedalling on static bicycles.
I am amazed, amazed, that people put up with it. In fact, they didn’t just put up with it: they were enthusiastic; they wanted to know more; they wanted to discuss the geometry of spacetime; they even wanted to hold my umbrella. Not to steal it, you understand, just to hold it while I fumbled around looking for another picture on my iPad.
So I can honestly say the Green Man Festival was as much of a learning experience for me as for those brave souls who tried to listen.
Mind you: having struggled through 36 hours of pouring rain, we were treated to an appearance of the Sun. Then it turns out that iPad screens are so insanely shiny that no-one can see a thing on them. It’s the first time I’ve been upstaged by anyone (in this case, Lewis Dartnell) bringing a stack of paper with images printed on it. “This might work better”, he said.
But when it started to rain again, he didn’t have an umbrella. I did.
By Andrew Pontzen, a cosmologist who has finally dried out.
August 26, 2010
Green Man: In Photos
Check out our flickr site for all the pics from this weekend at Green Man, including Jelly Brain Dissections with Guy Billings
the Flavour Feast
1