--:-- local · sidereal --:--
Replay · local time
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Sound output
drawn like a chart recorder · starts with the soundStars · last 6 hours · click one to hear it
No stars yet.
Starlight Data Sonification
The sky turns once every 23 hours and 56 minutes, like the cylinder of a music box. The meridian, the north–south line straight overhead, is its comb: every star plays a note at the exact moment it crosses that line above where you are. The place is guessed from your time zone and can be changed in the settings.
STELLAR DATA FIELDS grows out of Stellar, an interactive installation and interface for scientific data sonification first shown in 2015. Space has no sound, so Stellar linked light to sound: two robotic arms pointed at stars on a cylinder showing the northern constellations, and each star's temperature, brightness and distance became pitch, loudness and length. Stellar played about 300 stars of the northern sky; this version plays about 9,000, across the whole sky above wherever you are. More about Stellar
Each note comes from the star itself. Its colour, which shows how hot it is, sets the pitch: hotter stars sound higher. The light it really gives off sets the loudness, its distance how long it sounds, and its place north or south of overhead puts it left or right. The Milky Way adds a low hum underneath.
Replay plays tonight's sky, from dusk to dawn, in 15 minutes. Live plays the real sky at its real speed, about three stars a minute. Manual lets you sweep through the night by hand. Press Start sound, then zoom into part of the sky to hear only the stars you see.
Replay · local time
Sound output
drawn like a chart recorder · starts with the sound