Solar System Sonification at ECLIPSE 2017 @ GEORGIA TECH

On Aug. 21, 2017, as we wait for the sun to hide behind the moon and then reemerge, join the activities by Kessler Campanile. Among them is Solar System Sonification, a music technology project to help us mere mortals experience our sun and its planets through sound.

Students in the Sonification Lab and  Center for Music Technology designed Solar System Sonification, an auditory experience of the planets. Using non-speech audio to convey information, they built a musical model of the solar system.

Planetariums typically rely on visuals with various levels of speech description, but have not explored using auditory cues to present information about space. Auditory displays, like the ones developed for Solar System Sonification, enable more immersive experiences and make information accessible to people with visual impairments. 

The project offers two views: the solar system view and the planetary view. The solar system view looks at the whole system through how the planets and other objects interact. The planetary view focuses on properties of the planets themselves. 

For the solar system view, attributes such as mass, length of year (orbital period), length of day, and distance from the sun are displayed. For the planetary view, attributes such as planet type, number of moons, number of rings, gravitational force, and the mean temperature range are represented. 

See 2017 publication for details on the design of auditory displays for this project.

Explore the solar system through sound at ECLIPSE 2017 @ GEORGIA TECH at Kessler Campanile.

This amazing auditory journey through the solar system is the creation of a team from the Colleges of Computing, Design, and Sciences:

• Brianna Tomlinson, School of Interactive Computing, Sonification Lab
• Mike Winters, Center for Music Technology, Sonification Lab
• Chris Latina, Center for Music Technology
• Smruthi Bhat, School of Computer Science
• Milap Rane, Center for Music Technology
• Bruce Walker, School of Psychology, School of Interactive Computing