Stellar pulses are transformed into a celestial symphony

[Judi Lynn]

By Doris Elin Urrutia about 6 hours ago

This subfield of astronomy is called asteroseismology.

A new NASA video showcases the whirring symphony of stars in our cosmic
neighborhood.

Although it usually hunts for alien worlds, or exoplanets in the nearby universe, one NASA mission is also capable of measuring the vibrations produced by behemoth celestial bodies known as red giant stars.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, which launched in April 2018, is designed to find exoplanets. The technique it uses to find these worlds is called the transit method, and it involves surveying nearby stars and waiting to see if their brightness dips at all. These dips are caused by a planetary body passing in front of the star's face, from our perspective in space.



An illustration of red giant stars. (Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KBRwyle))

Because TESS is already poised to observe changes in stars caused by orbiting exoplanets, it was also capable of detecting the oscillations in the bodies of red giants.

"Our initial result, using stellar measurements across TESS's first two years, shows that we can determine the masses and sizes of these oscillating giants with precision that will only improve as TESS goes on," said Marc Hon, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, who presented the new research this week during the second TESS Science Conference. Hon commented in an Aug. 4 NASA statement about the new work.

More:
https://www.space.com/red-giant-sound-waves-celestial-symphony

[abqtommy]

1. This is fascinating. I was reminded that I've read, and heard about, many literary references

to "the music of the spheres". Enjoy.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=the+music+of+the+spheres+quote&ia=web

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks for your post!

The Glass Bead Game: A Poem by Hermann Hesse



We are ready to receive in reverence
the music of the masters, the symphonies of the spheres,
and invoke in sacred celebrations
the ancient holy spirits of the blessed ages.

We let ourselves be exalted
by magic, sacred secrets
that capture life’s wild, stormy vigor,
to transform it into revealing symbols.

Like stellar constellations those invocations
pull us into their orbit, give meaning to our life,
and nobody can fall from these circles
except toward the sacred center.

Translation, Professor Ludwig Max Fisher.

Source: “The Seasons of the Soul: The Poetic Guidance and Spiritual Wisdom of Hermann Hesse.” Translation, Ludwig Max Fisher, forward by Andrew Harvey. North Atlantic Books: Berkeley, CA, 2011. http://www.amazon.com/The-Seasons-Soul-Guidance-Spiritual/dp/1583943137

Note: This post is created so the reader could access Hermann Hesse’s original poem “The Glass Bead Game” separately from other poems that are written within the original novel “The Glass Bead Game.”

http://www.raykarush.com/the-glass-bead-game-a-poem-by-hermann-hesse/

[Judi Lynn]

3. Just found this article I would like to add: Music of the Spheres

Scientists demand empirical proof in all fields of enquiry. But the fact is that the scientific method is not suitable to all fields of study.

Empirical proof is as one sided as is, say, reductionism. Scientific method involves formulating a hypothesis and testing it empirically, i.e. if it can not be measured by external instruments, it is not a fit subject for Science. What the empiricists did not take into account was the fact that the human body itself is a measuring device of remarkable complexity. According to the Oxford Reference Dictionary, empirical proof relies on observation and experiment, and not on theory; but at the same time defines empiricism as the theory that regards sense-experiences as the only source of knowledge. How, we may well ask, can scientific proof be based on an empiricism which is only a theory?

One way I believe we can demonstrate this dilemma brought about by a reliance on a so-called empirical knowledge, is by considering music and our ‘empirical’ sense-experience of hearing in regard to the phenomenon known as the Pythagorean comma. I first came across this strange creature when I was asked by Macmillan to write a book about the steelpan of Trinidad and Tobago. They wanted a simple, large format picture book to tell the story about the evolution of pan, as the instrument is called. From the very start of my research I realised that I was dealing with something very special and quite magical, the alchemical story of the only acoustic instrument to be invented in the 20th century. It was the story of the transmutation of industrial waste material into a musical instrument. Ring of Steel, pan sound & symbol

“In the last century, the British attempted to control Carnival in Trinidad by banning the drum. This act was as cruel as destroying their language of the slaves had been. This led, however, to the evolution of the tambour bamboo bands in which bamboo 'reeds' were cut to varying lengths and the music made by striking them on the ground or with sticks. In the present century, during World War two, when Carnival itself was banned, the steel band evolved - appropriately from the tambour bamboo bands.” [Ring of Steel]

At the end of the 1939-45 war, American forces had left discarded oil canisters on the islands and in a remarkably short period of time, these had been transformed into finely tuned melodic and harmonic instruments. These were to become a symbol of the unity in the diversity so characteristic of the Caribbean territories.

“The development of pan has paralleled the development of calypso and carnival in which the right to play mas is deeply rooted in the archetypal human and Dionysian need for a sense of meaning and validation. Dionysus, was not the god of drunkenness but the god of 'ecstatic vision' and we each need our ecstasy. If we do not get it legitimately, we will get it in an illegitimate way. Carnival, or Mas, is not only an ongoing re-enactment of historical reality but a psychic process, integrating the dark and the light, the masculine and the feminine, leading to individuation” [ibid] The development of pan was pure alchemy.

In the final chapter of my book I proposed that the universal appeal of steelpan music may be due to its special harmonic structure, although I make it clear that research still had to be done into the acoustics of the instrument. The study of harmonics in the West can be traced back to Pythagoras, the 6th Century BC Greek philosopher and if pursued, will take us to that mysterious comma which was named after him. His theory of the harmony of the spheres was itself most likely derived from the Egyptian sidereal musical scale. He had, after all, studied for 21 years in Egypt and the school which he later set up in Crotone, Southern Italy, was based on Egyptian mathematical and religious (pan theistic) principles.

In his book on the life of Pythagoras, the historian Iamblichus, describes how the Greek philosopher, was walking past a brazier’s shop, when he heard ‘hammers beating out a piece of iron’. The hammers were producing sounds that ‘accorded’ with each other. Going into the shop he found that those that sounded well together had weights that were related - twice, three times or half the weight of one another. He applied what he had discovered to various instruments, to pipes, reeds, monochords, triangles and to instruments known as patellae or pans He had in fact discovered the overtone series. The sounds he heard - ‘hammers beating out a piece of iron’, have resonated down the centuries. Today Trinidadians refer to playing pan as beating iron!

The science of harmonics has revealed a phenomenon of sound that has application not only it seems in the field of mathematics, physics and many other natural sciences (to our body structures and sense organs) but also to sound and music therapy. The overtone scale is also known as the harmonic series where the notes rise in exact numerical relationships to the fundamental. Taking the fundamental as the first note, the second note is twice its frequency (an octave); the third note is three times the fundamental (a fifth in musical terms),; the 4th - four times the frequency (the next octave) and so on. As we move further away from the fundamental the intervals between the octaves become progressively smaller [i.e. the ratios between the numbers become smaller and smaller the greater their number]

More:
https://cygrant.com/project/music-of-the-spheres

~ ~ ~

"Michael Harris" is mentioned in the article, had to check YouTube for any examples, found this one quickly, have listened to part of it:

Also added this example of the "Well Tempered Clavier" :

[abqtommy]

4. This is verrry interesting. Thanks! I have heard "pan", or steel drums, live and was

mesmerized by them.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Same here. They are almost shocking when you can actually hear them at close range....

The experience was completely unique, overwhelming.

I'm going to look some up on YouTube.

Thank goodness for the "Series of Tubes" as so well defined by Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska:

[Judi Lynn]

6. Just for fun:

Full screen, far better.