Earthlings send music to Mars and back, universe remains unfazed

“Firsts” are always big deals on both large and small scales.  The first man on the moon, big deal.  The first time using a toilet in a new house, big deal.  Thanks to NASA, it seems like we got another ‘first’ to cross off the ole list.  How about the first-ever planet to planet music broadcast?

Well if your solo artist and lead vocalist for the Black Eyed Peas, Will.i.am, you can take credit for this marvel.  In Pasadena, California, Will played an MP3 of his son “Reach for the Stars” to an audience of engineers and students.  The song traveled 330 million miles to Mars and back.

Here’s the thing.  Curiosity, the Mars Rover, doesn’t have any speakers so hidden Martians weren’t able to pump the beat to anything.  Why would a rover have speakers?  On top of that, Mars air is quite different than Earth air so the music would sound quite distorted.  That’s not how we want the aliens to hear our music for the first time.

This is not NASA’s first musical experience in outer space.  There have been radio emissions of Saturn recorded by the Cassini spacecraft in the past.  Maybe aliens out there somewhere want to let the beat drop.

[NYTimes]

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