In celebration of Johann Strauss II’s 200th birthday, the classic waltz “Blue Danube” will be transmitted into space on May 31, performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. This event is significant as it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the European Space Agency (ESA). The performance will be live-streamed with public screenings in cities like Vienna, Madrid, and New York, ushering in this unique interstellar transmission. To ensure technical reliability, ESA will transmit a pre-recorded version of the orchestra’s rehearsal while the live performance plays alongside.
As the radio signals travel at the speed of light—approximately 670 million mph—they will quickly traverse the solar system, reaching the moon in about 1.5 seconds, Mars in 4.5 minutes, Jupiter in 37 minutes, and Neptune within four hours. Within 23 hours, the signals will stretch as far as NASA’s Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object.
This isn’t the first instance of music being sent into space. NASA celebrated its own 50th anniversary in 2008 by transmitting the Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” while last year featured Missy Elliott’s “The Rain” directed toward Venus. Notably, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity relayed music back to Earth, furthering the connection between music and space exploration.
Notably, Strauss’s “Blue Danube” was overlooked for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records, a collection of sounds and music sent into space in 1977. The upcoming transmission aims to rectify this omission, with ESA highlighting music’s unifying power across time and space. The agency hopes to inspire future explorers with this cosmic homage to Strauss.
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