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New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Vienna's Musical Message to Aliens: One, Two, Three. One, Two, Three.
What would aliens make of the waltz? That was the big question on Saturday evening while the Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed Johann Strauss's world-renowned 'Blue Danube' waltz, as a 35-meter antenna in Cebreros, Spain, simultaneously transmitted a recording of it into space. The Vienna Tourist Board, which organized the event at the Museum of Applied Arts in collaboration with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the European Space Agency, said beaming the music into the cosmos was an effort to correct the record, as it were. In 1977, when the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft left the Earth with two copies of the Golden Record, which contains images, sounds and music from Earth, Strauss's 'Blue Danube' waltz did not make the cut. This was a mistake, according to Vienna's tourism board, which is celebrating Strauss's 200th birthday this year. After all, Strauss was the 19th-century equivalent of a pop star. According to Tim Dokter, the director of artistic administration for the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, back then, each composition for the waltz was like a hot new single. 'People would wait for it, like, 'Oh, a new waltz dropped today,'' Dokter said. 'It was something new to dance to, like a new techno song.' With Voyager 1 already more than 15 billion miles from Earth, the farthest of any object humans have launched into the universe, there's no way to make changes to the Golden Record. Instead, the 'Blue Danube' waltz — traveling as an electromagnetic wave at the speed of light — will overtake the spacecraft and continue to soar into deep space. Will aliens be able to access the recording? 'If aliens have a big antenna, receive the waves, convert them into music, then they could hear it,' said Josef Aschbacher, the director general of the European Space Agency. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why is the European Space Agency beaming a waltz at NASA's Voyager 1 probe this weekend?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. With its sweeping tempo and ethereal melody, Austrian composer Johann Strauss II's "The Blue Danube" waltz has become synonymous with outer space and science fiction ever since it was chosen by Stanley Kubrick for 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey." Now "The Blue Danube" waltz with its whirling orbital rhythms will truly become the music of the cosmos when the European Space Agency broadcasts the lilting classical piece into deep space in celebration of the agency's 50th anniversary this year, in addition to the bicentennial of Johann Strauss II's birth in 1825. Performed by the Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony Orchestra), this definitive anthem of space and sci-fi will be transmitted towards NASA's Voyager 1 probe by ESA's 35-meter Deep Space Antenna in Cebreros, Spain. Space fans and music lovers can watch an entire 15-minute livestream on the event's official website and on their YouTube or Instagram Channel regardless of your location, starting at 3:30 p.m. ET (1930 GMT) on Saturday (May 31). Known in its native German as "An der schönen blauen Donau" which translates into "By the Beautiful Blue Danube," the sublime composition's 13,743 notes are being broadcast into the interstellar void on a mission that "is both a tribute to the past and a testament to the future – a Viennese Waltz that will echo through space forever," according to the event's website. Composed by Strauss in 1866 as a consolatory gift to the Viennese people after defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, "The Blue Danube" was conceived from a poem describing the Danube River by Karl Isidor Beck that contained the phrase "beautiful blue Danube." It's one of the most widely recognized pieces of classical music in the world, partly due to its Hollywood history, its associations with space, and being a universally-loved audience favorite in concert halls around the globe. In a pivotal transition scene from director Stanley Kubrick's magnum opus "2001: A Space Odyssey," the film cuts from a twirling bone during the dawn of early humans to an orbiting nuclear weapons platform in the future as the camera follows a needle-nosed Pan Am spaceship drifting towards a gently turning space station. The tune continues on as another shuttle docks at the Clavius moonbase built on the lunar surface. Fans also might recall "The Blue Danube Waltz" being employed in an episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer opens a smuggled bag of potato chips ("Careful, they're ruffled!") inside a space shuttle and proceeds to catch floating chips in his mouth along to the swaying melody of the Strauss melody. RELATED STORIES: — '2001: A Space Odyssey' Turns 50: Why Haven't Humans Been to Jupiter Yet? — Will We Ever Achieve the Vision of '2001: A Space Odyssey'? (Op-Ed) — Voyager 1: Facts about Earth's farthest spacecraft The King of Waltz's iconic musical masterpiece wasn't included in NASA's Voyager space probes' Golden Records launched into space back in 1977, but this Waltz into Space aimed at Voyager 1 will correct that glaring oversight. Currently, Voyager 1 is traveling 15.4 billion miles (24.8 billion kilometers) from Earth, taking this celebratory signal roughly 23 hours and 3 minutes to reach the historic spacecraft.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vienna calling: Strauss's 'The Blue Danube' to waltz into outer space
Austrian composer Johann Strauss II's "The Blue Danube" has, for many people, been synonymous with space travel since it was used in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi film classic "2001: A Space Odyssey". But the world famous waltz will truly travel among the stars on Saturday, when the European Space Agency's (ESA) antenna will broadcast a live performance of it into space to celebrate the composer's 200th birthday. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra will play a concert in the Austrian capital from 1930 GMT, Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, told AFP. The concert will be broadcast live on the internet and also be shown at a public screening in Vienna, in New York at Bryant Park, and near the antenna in Spain. "The digitised sound will be transmitted to the large 35-metre satellite dish at ESA's Cebreros ground station in Spain," Aschbacher said. And from there, the waltz will be "transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves", the Austrian astronomer explained. - 'Typical of space' - Like no other waltz by Strauss junior, "The Blue Danube" evokes the elegance of 19th-century imperial Vienna, which lives on in the city's roaring ball season. For Norbert Kettner, director of the Vienna tourist board, the Danube waltz is a "true unofficial space anthem" because of Kubrick. The timeless waltz is the "typical sound of space", Kettner said, with the tunes being played "during various docking manoeuvres of the International Space Station (ISS)". When the waltz is performed on Saturday, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will make sure to underline the waltz's airiness as if it were floating through space, its director Jan Nast said. According to Nast, who put together the programme for Saturday's hour-long "interstellar concert", music is a language "which touches many people" and has "the universal power to convey hope and joy". - Filling a gap - Once transmitted via Spain's satellite dish, the signal will travel at the speed of light to eventually reach NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft -- the most distant man-made object in the universe -- in approximately 23 hours and 3 minutes. After surpassing Voyager 1, it will continue its interstellar journey. By catching up with the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, Austria also seeks to right a perceived wrong. Both Voyagers carry "Golden Records" -- 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials. The record holds 115 images of life on Earth, recorded in analogue form, and a variety of sounds and snatches of music. While "The Magic Flute" by Austria's composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was included among the selection of 27 music pieces, Strauss's famous waltz was not. bg/kym/jza/phz
CTV News
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Strauss' ‘Blue Danube' waltz is launching into space to mark his 200th birthday
This undated photo released by the European Space Agency shows the 35 meter-diameter deep-space dish antenna, DSA-2, in Cebreros, Spain, receiving the first signals from Venus Express. (ESA via AP) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Strauss' 'Blue Danube' is heading into space this month to mark the 200th anniversary of the waltz king's birth. The classical piece will be beamed into the cosmos as it's performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The celestial send-off on May 31 — livestreamed with free public screenings in Vienna, Madrid and New York — also will celebrate the European Space Agency's founding 50 years ago. Although the music could be converted into radio signals in real time, according to officials, ESA will relay a pre-recorded version from the orchestra's rehearsal the day before to avoid any technical issues. The live performance will provide the accompaniment. The radio signals will hurtle away at the speed of light, or a mind-blowing 670 million mph (more than one billion km/h). That will put the music past the moon in 1 1/2 seconds, past Mars in 4 1/2 minutes, past Jupiter in 37 minutes and past Neptune in four hours. Within 23 hours, the signals will be as far from Earth as NASA's Voyager 1, the world's most distant spacecraft at more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) in interstellar space. NASA also celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008 by transmitting a song directly into deep space: the Beatles' 'Across the Universe.' And last year, NASA beamed up Missy Elliott's 'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)' toward Venus. Music has even flowed from another planet to Earth — courtesy of a NASA Mars rover. Flight controllers at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent a recording of 'Reach for the Stars' to Curiosity in 2012 and the rover relayed it back. These are all deep-space transmissions as opposed to the melodies streaming between NASA's Mission Control and orbiting crews since the mid-1960s. Now it's Strauss' turn, after getting passed over for the Voyager Golden Records nearly a half-century ago. Launched in 1977, NASA's twin Voyagers 1 and 2 each carry a gold-plated copper phonograph record, along with a stylus and playing instructions for anyone or anything out there. The records contain sounds and images of Earth as well as 90 minutes of music. The late astronomer Carl Sagan led the committee that chose Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Stravinsky pieces, along with modern and Indigenous selections. Among those skipped was Johann Strauss II, whose 'Blue Danube' graced Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi opus '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The tourist board in Vienna, where Strauss was born on Oct. 25, 1825, said it aims to correct this 'cosmic mistake' by sending the 'the most famous of all waltzes' to its destined home among the stars. ESA's big radio antenna in Spain, part of the space agency's deep-space network, will do the honors. The dish will be pointed in the direction of Voyager 1 so the 'Blue Danube' heads that way. 'Music connects us all through time and space in a very particular way,' ESA's director general Josef Aschbacher said in a statement. 'The European Space Agency is pleased to share the stage with Johann Strauss II and open the imaginations of future space scientists and explorers who may one day journey to the anthem of space.' The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press
