Data compiled by NASA using Google Scholar. Each year's data represents the number of articles, citations and patents dated in that year and returned by Google Scholar when applying a certain set of keywords.
Credits: SYSTEM Sounds/Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida
Lunar exploration is musical.
On July 20, 1969, Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took humanity’s first steps on the Moon. Fifty years later, we can now hear the reverberations of that historic day in the form of a song.
“Giant Leaps” is a piece of data-driven music that celebrates creativity, discovery and progress in our exploration of the Moon. It’s an audible representation of how much we’ve learned about the Moon, and how our scientific interest in the Moon has changed over time.
Listen to the NASA Explorers: Apollo podcast
Learn more about this data sonification in Ep. 1: Giant Leaps.
Data sonification is the art of translating data into sound or music. While a chart lets you see data, a sonification lets you hear it. The melody of “Giant Leaps” is driven by the amount of scientific activity associated with the Moon in each year, from the 1960s to present day. Each year's data is a count of all the articles, citations and patents related to NASA’s lunar missions.
Every musical instrument in “Giant Leaps” is propelled by this data. Here’s a breakdown:
The pitch of the notes conveys the amount of scientific activity associated with the Moon in each year. The higher the pitch, the more scientific publications in that year.
- Strings and electric piano = scientific activity associated with the Apollo program
- Brass instruments = scientific activity associated with all other lunar missions
The percussion instruments indicate the passage of time.
- Clock ticking = months
- Snare drum = years
- Bass drum = decades
- Cymbals crashing = launches
The pitch rises and falls to mark the two “peaks” of lunar exploration: the Apollo era and the modern era. The pitch rises in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, as 11 crewed Apollo missions launched to the Moon. The pitch falls in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, when the Apollo program ended and NASA hadn’t yet begun launching lunar robotic missions. From the 2000s to the present day, the pitch climbs dramatically with a new wave of lunar missions. NASA launches several robotic spacecraft to study the Moon: Clementine, Lunar Prospector, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, LCROSS, ARTEMIS, GRAIL and LADEE.
“In the sonification there are these two peaks and the valley,” Moon data visualizer Ernie Wright said. “But the other thing to take from it is that there is a continuous note of exploration. Once we went to the Moon, we didn’t want to stop learning about it. So hopefully if we make another sonification in the future, we’ll hear the pitch go up even more.”
Meet the artists
“Giant Leaps” was created by the musicians, astrophysicists and computer programmers of SYSTEM Sounds. SYSTEM Sounds is a science-art outreach project that translates the rhythm and harmony of the cosmos into music and sound.
For “Giant Leaps,” Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida selected a musical scale that would evoke the excitement of the Apollo era. The data itself has what Russo calls “the ideal musical shape.” Russo and Santaguida used a coding method called parameter mapping to set up the “rules” the data would follow as it translated to music. From there, they sat back, let the code run and listened.
“We picked an orchestral background because we wanted a big, grand soundscape for this project,” Santaguida said. “The goal was to help people connect emotionally with the data through music.”
Woven throughout the instrumentals are sound bites from the NASA archives, including Apollo launch audio and dialogue from astronauts and Apollo Mission Control. President John F. Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the Moon speech” serves as narration for the piece. The resulting melody is a unification of art, math and science.
“‘Giant Leaps’ is all about reaching for the next peak and experiencing the valleys in between,” Russo said. “There’s the burst of excitement around the time of the Moon launches and landings. Then it seems like the excitement kind of wanes, but it turned out that was just the setup for the much greater peaks that were yet to come.”
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By Micheala Sosby
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Last Updated: July 10, 2019
Editor: Micheala Sosby
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