Earth swimming in a sea of stars
Earth swimming in a sea of stars amidst the Milky Way

More about the release
3 Notes

NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured this grand prospect of Earth swimming in a sea of stars over the course of ten days in April 2019. Earth is the first bright round spot that shows up before the Milky Way is seen. The Moon was too close to Earth to be resolved. The background star near Earth is Spica.

Mercury is seen in transit across the Milky Way core. Venus is the very bright spot at the end. Jupiter is also seen just before Mercury appears while Saturn is in the background. The stripes are interstellar dust hitting the camera sensor shield. By the time Parker Solar Probe imaged Venus it was traveling at 95km/s (~213,000mph).

A wind of fast moving particles blows out from our Sun, and although space transmits sound poorly, particle impact and variable-field data from NASA's near-Sun Parker Solar Probe is being translated into sound. The audio track recounts several of these reverberations, including Langmuir Waves, Whistler Mode Waves, and Dispersive Chirping Waves.

Music courtesy of Max Richter.

Release Notes (3)

NASA Parker Solar Probe Encounter 02

Sounds of the Solar Wind from NASA's Parker Solar Probe

'Stalking' by Max Richter

Release details

Category
technologyfilm & videomusic
Release Date
17 May 2025
Catalog number
WISPR002
avisolomon
Avi Solomon
WISPR002

Earth swimming in a sea of stars amidst the Milky Way

Created by
Avi Solomon

A

We humans need to hold our cosmic situation in mind while dealing with matters on Earth. NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured this grand prospect of Earth swimming in a sea of stars over the course of ten days in April 2019. I have processed the raw footage and remixed it with sounds of the Solar wind and a stellar track by Max Richter.

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