Researchers Capture Sound of Martian Sunrise

A team of researchers from Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Exeter, UK, has created the soundtrack of the Martian sunrise captured by NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity, using data sonification techniques to create a two-minute piece of music.

Photograph of the 5,000th sunrise over Mars captured by NASA’s Opportunity rover. Image credit: NASA.

Anglia Ruskin University’s Dr. Domenico Vicinanza and Dr. Genevieve Williams of the University of Exeter created the piece of music by scanning a picture from left to right, pixel by pixel, and looking at brightness and color information and combining them with terrain elevation.

They used algorithms to assign each element a specific pitch and melody.

The quiet, slow harmonies are a consequence of the dark background and the brighter, higher pitched sounds towards the middle of the piece are created by the sonification of the Sun’s bright disk.

“We are absolutely thrilled about presenting this work about such a fascinating planet,” Dr. Vicinanza said.

“Image sonification is a really flexible technique to explore science and it can be used in several domains, from studying certain characteristics of planet surfaces and atmospheres, to analyzing weather changes or detecting volcanic eruptions.”

“In health science, it can provide scientists with new methods to analyze the occurrence of certain shapes and colors, which is particularly useful in image diagnostics.”

The team will present the piece next week at the Supercomputing SC18 Conference in Dallas, Texas.