Mercury Crossers by Radio Galaxies

These tracks were made using a python 2.7 script. The code stitched together pianissimo piano samples obtained from the University of Iowa Electronic Music Lab. Notes and note lengths weren’t entirely randomly generated, but each was picked from a range of options within certain parameters.

These songs were created for 49 of the Mercury-crossing asteroids: those with a smaller perihelion and larger aphelion than Mercury’s (.3075AU and .4667AU respectively). Each song’s length is calculated by multiplying its orbital period in years by the length of a minute. The tempo of each song fluctuates throughout its run time, and is predicated on it’s distance from the sun at a certain point in its orbit (or the current time in the sun). The length of each note is shortest at its perehelion and longest at its aphelion.

In order to calculate the tempo of the song at any time, the variables a, b and c were found for a parabola (in the form of y=ax^2 * bx + c) with the coordinates (aphelion, 0), (songlength/2, perihelion) and (songlength, aphelion). After a single note’s length is created, the corresponding time (within a certain range) is picked by finding the corresponding y variable in the aforementioned parabola.

The artwork is a collection of radar images taken of 3200 Phatheon by NAIC's Arecibo Observatory.

Currently completing the Solar Sysem Project (a much more arduous version of the 50 States Project)