For a full copy of the Magazine, go to the
ComputerChips BlogspotOkay, so I missed the last issue! I could have been traveling in space, but, alas, it was that nasty virus going around. This month’s article will be a potpourri of Cosmic items. This month, we will explore the Cosmos through sight and sound, with a liberal sprinkling of website references.
Most of at least seen NASA pictures of space, especially those taken from the Space Telescope. However, sound from space is also available. NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, now far beyond Pluto, carried a12-inch gold-plated copper disk with the sounds of earth embedded thereupon. Astronomer Carl Sagan chose the contents. More information on this high-tech phonograph record, including a listing of the contents and technical details, is at
http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/voyager/voyager record.html. Interestingly enough, NASA and JPL recorded plasma-wave signals while the spacecraft flew past Mars to Jupiter. Processors shifted the frequencies shifted to the audio and processed into a five CD set called "Symphonies of the Planets". It is a fabulous recording, with incredible gong, bells and other pleasant sounds. While this Laser Light recording is out of print, there are other commercially available CD’s containing the sounds of the stars and planets.
The website Space Sounds,
http://www.spacesounds.com/beyond/index.html, is an elegant site that leads to sounds from the planets, the stars and other astronomical objects. One animated object is a rotating black hole with an X-ray jet emitting from the center. When you hold your mouse on the jet, you hear the sound of that emission. Space Sounds also contains audio histories of spaceflight, pictures of astronomical objects and links to Space Art. NASA even got into the act and posted spooky Halloween sounds – recordings of the Cassini spacecraft collected near Jupiter in January 2001. Spooky sounds are at
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/features/halloween_sounds.html. Finally, the University of Iowa has links to a variety of sounds from space, both those collected from spacecraft and those recorded on earth. This site is at
http://www pw.physics.uiowa.edu/~dag/sounds2.html. The Iowa University Physics & Astronomy Department, in collaboration with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences produced a multimedia presentation, “Sounds of Space and the Kronos Quartet Sun Rings”. See
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio/sun-rings/Kronos-Lecture/ for more information on space sounds and download a fully illustrated mpg lecture, including sounds.
NASA comes through again and provides on online very low frequency receiver (VLF). Go to
http://spaceweather.com/glossary/inspire.html. to hear real-time sounds from space. Finally, if you are ambitious, and have already built the Lunar Excursion Module computer described in a previous column, go for it and build your own receiving system for space sounds. Build a Pocket-Portable WR3 Natural Phenomena Receiver. Go to
http://www.auroralchorus.com/wr3gde.htm instructions.
Now it is time for the fun stuff! Moviemakers generated Space sounds a strange musical instrument called the Theremin. This instrument worked using the principles of beat frequency or heterodyning oscillators. The first film to use totally synthesized music was Forbidden Planet. That film from the early 1950’s featured great actors such as Leslie “Whoopee Cushion” Nielsen in the serious role as a starship captain. It also starred Walter Pidgeon and the every lovely Anne Francis. The electronic music in that film is fantastic. Not only could you feel cultured watching Anne Francis in a skimpy outfit, but also one could comfort oneself with the knowledge that Shakespeare’s The Tempest inspired the plot. Finally, you can watch cows defend the earth at
http://www.bechamel.com/v3/strange2.swf. The connection to space sounds is a bit tenuous, but you will figure it out when the cow uses its ultimate weapon!
On the visual side of space, there are a myriad of websites devoted to photos from space. The foremost of these is at the Hubble Space Telescope site. Images are at
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/ are phenomenal! Another interesting site is the Slooh Online Telescope at http://www.slooh.com/. You can go there and take a free tour or join as a subscriber. As a $49/year subscriber, you get to participate in group observing missions, getting real time views from the Slooh telescope along with audio commentary from various experts. For more money, you can buy time for yourself and explore the universe using their observatory on Mount Teide in the Canary Islands. Go to
http://www.space.com for images and links. This site is a daily space news site. A university site run by Oklahoma State University,
www.okstate.edu/aesp/image.html, has archives of space images. Go to
http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/efs/ for Astronaut photographed images of the earth. Obviously, these are just a few of the interesting internet resources for images.
Astronauts and cosmonauts have obviously been fascinated by what they have seen and experienced in space. This brings us to the final section of this article – Space Art. The term, Space Art, is somewhat self-defining. For a scholarly definition, try,
http://www.arsastronautica.com/definition.php. Go to
http://www.aerospaced.org/tempex/spaceart/artists.htm for information about the premier Soviet cosmonaut artist, Alexei Leonov. Alan Bean, a lunar astronaut is a prominent American space artist. A commercial site for Space Art is
http://www.novaspace.com/index.shtml. Another site, with an obvious name, is
http://www.spaceart.org/, a non-commercial site.
If one considers film as art, one of the first such movies was the 1902 movie Le Voyage dans la Lune. One of my favorite space movies, discussed above, was Forbidden Planet, A good site for space movie listings is
http://www.hobbyspace.com/Movies/index.html#Pre1950. Finally, movies about Mars began early in history of movies, beginning with an epic Soviet film about a trip to Mars. For listings of these movies, see the website maintained by Gerry Williams, a member of the San Diego branch of the Mars Society. His is also a professional Hollywood camera operator. Go to
http://marsmovieguide.com/ and be enlightened.
Well, that is all for now. Future subjects may include space law, quasi-serious UFO discussions as well as science fiction, Zen on the internet and other related topics. If you have comments or suggestions, please contact me at murmac01@yahoo.com. You can also comment at the CompterChips blog at
http://computerchipsmag.blogspot.com/. May the farce…er, Force be with you!
A comment from a reader pointed me to a very good Space Art site:
http://www.arttechnologies.com/
However, they are in gas giant orbits and too cold for water, thus, under current understanding, too cold for life. Apparently, their stellar systems did not have enough gas to allow the planets to coalesce into gas giants as seems to be the norm in extra-solar systems. However, I believe that a number of gas giants have been located orbiting in Venus/Earth/Mars orbits. Current theory says that when gas giants orbit that close to their stellar parent, there can be no earth-like planets present in that system. See 
We are a nonprofit membership organization located in Northern California that conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness—including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor. 
The institute is not a spiritual association, political-action group, or a single-cause institute. Rather, we honor open-minded approaches and multiple ways of knowing, bring discernment to our work, and support diversity of perspectives on social and scientific matters. 
