Sounds from Planets and Space: Sonification

 Check this out:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07966.html

Then listen to this


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5MHsnc67yw

 Charles Dodge is an important computer music composer and pioneer whose early workEarth’s Magnetic Field is an interesting example of sonification of a natural function. Dodge (with his collaborator, scientist Bruce Boller) used a graph of what are called the K_pindices, which chart the "average magnetic activity" for the Earth:

"The succession of notes in the music corresponds to the natural succession of the K_p indices for the year 1961... The musical interpretration consists of setting up a correlation between the level of the K_p reading and the pitch of the note (in a diatonic collection over four octaves), and compressing the 2,920 readings for the year into just over eight minutes of musical time" (from the liner notes to Charles Dodge, Earth’s Magnetic Field, Nonesuch LP H-71250).

http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/musicandcomputers/popups/chapter1/xbit_1_1.php