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NASA HAS CARRIED out another ground-breaking first – broadcasting music from another planet.
‘Reach for the Stars’ by will.i.am was successfully broadcast on Mars by the rover Curioristy and beamed the 700 million miles (1,126 million km) back to Earth yesterday.
The musician has been helping NASA to promote its STEM programme which aims to draw more young people into studying science, technology engineering and math.
Speaking at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California during a special event for the live broadcast, will.i.am said:
Today is about inspiring young people to lead a life without limits placed on their potential and to pursue collaboration between humanity and technology through STEAM education. I know my purpose is to inspire young people, because they will keep inspiring me back.
NASA researchers were feeling the beat during the broadcast:
YouTube: collectspace
NASA Associate Administrator for Education and space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin said that the broadcast and the agency’s work to inspire students was a fitting way to celebrate the life and achievements of late Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong.
“That first footprint that Neil placed on the lunar surface left an indelible mark in history,” Melvin said.
“Perhaps one of our students here today or watching on NASA Television will be the first to set foot on the surface of Mars and continue humanity’s quest to explore.”
If you could have chosen one track to beam back to Earth from space, what would it have been? Add your suggestions to the comments below.
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Life on mars – Bowie of course
Agreed!
If anything is guaranteed to annoy the Martians its playing Will.i.am to them. They are probably planning their invasion in retaliation as we speak.
It’s very appropriate, he’s a complete space cadet
What did Mars ever do to deserve that punishment. Will.i.am is terrible and is systematically destroying one of my fave genres of music.
Perhaps, but he has a relationship with NASA (to reach ‘de yoot’ I suppose). It didn’t surprise me. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/will_i_am_psa.html
The entire War of the Worlds CD. That’s what.
“No one would have believed…….”
Seconded
Third!
The surest sign that there is life on other planets is the fact that they have never tried to contact us.
it’s life Jim, but not as we know it….
I prefer the Steps version.
There, I said it.
S club 7
Pump Up The Volume by MARRS.
That should keep them away!
Rick Astley’s “never gonna give you up”, played on a banjo. I can’t hear that enough times.
A mars a day helps you work rest and play!
H. G. Wells’s “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast from 1938.
they should have played a bit of Daniel O Donnell!!
Pink Floyd Dark side of the moon
Ground control to major Tom
Imagine the Fire by Hans Zimmer
I have a lovely bunch of coconuts .,,
Yes, we have no bananas
It’s the end of the world as we know it- REM what a class song to pump out around space – shake things up a bit- better than will.i.am by a million miles
Remember listening to that mid 90s when the end of the world was apparently nigh (again). Man on the moon was on repeat this week also. Will we ever see the likes of REM again?
I don’t know why playing will.i.am is portrayed as being wrong in this article. The ‘mars, We’re sorry’ sentence indicates that. He has geared the steam education in America to get kids more interested in science and by doing this, it might even give them more insight into the scientific world. He is trying to give these kids a brighter future. Go will!!!
“Star trekking across the universe,
On the starship enterprise under Captain Kirk”
Now thats a song that needs to be broadcast in space….”theres klingons on the starboard side,starboard side, starboard side…”
Genius tune
starboard bow!
Damn,i always get that wrong!!
Scrape them off Jim. Ye cannae change the laws of physics, laws of physics Jim.
From the same people who did Dr Who and eventually formed the Klf. Amazing band.
Its worst then that it’s physics jim!!
Id expect Life on Mars to be the first one people say, but apparently not.
The superman theme tune
anything would be better than the muck they played!!
Wild Rover – synthesized voice – lots of reverb.
I’ve been your Mars rover for a week and a day but ye spent all me rockets on gettin me here.
Ye never told me the trip was one way so if I find any life here now I’ll never say.
LaLaLaaalaalala laalaalalala..
Girl from Mars by Ash!
no just no.
2001 A SPACE ODDESSY
How long does it take a song to travel 700 million miles for us to hear it here.. Sound travels at what speed ?? Just wondering
I’d imagine it’s the radio waves that we picked up here, as sound wouldn’t travel through space. Radio waves travel at the speed of light which is 3×10^8 metres per second.
Or 300,000,000 m/s
@ jack, Is speed of light not 186 000 miles/second. Something I remember from school that always stuck for some reason. Could be wrong, prob am!
@ jack, Is speed of light not 186 000 miles/second? Something I remember from school that always stuck for some reason. Could be wrong, prob am!
Yep 186,000 miles/second is the same as 300,000,000 metres/second
Oh right! I still operate in miles/feet etc.
Cheers Lads
Cheers for the info lads
after trying to calculate that , would I be right in saying it took about an hour for the song to get here from the time it started transmitting from Mars? or am I way off the mark?
I doubt it was hour as the sun is only 8 seconds away at light speed.
@James, Yeah I thinking something was up, So I checked the distance from earth to mars and found this
The Sun is 8 light-minutes from Earth. 150×10^6 km = 150*10^9 m.
Light travels at 3*10^8 m/s, so if Mars is approx. 100*10^9 m away, that means it takes about 6 minutes for radio waves to travel the distance.
Just for our mate Mr Roy Keane
You’ll never beat the Irish !!!
Glory Glory Man Utd !!!
They should have played chris de burgh a spaceman came travelling.
This must be the guy with mohawk everyone is on about? :)
out of space – the prodigy
First Hitler now Will-I-Am the human race is screwed.
@ jack light doesn’t travel at the same speed as sound. Sound energy requires a medium such as air to be transferred so won’t travel in a vacumm. While your correct with 3×10^8 m/s for the speed of light sound travels at 320-340 m/s and can depend on the density of the medium it passes through. The sound waves would never make it back to earth in any speed or order than it could be picked up and listened to.
Spaceman – Babylon zoo!!;)
what shite will they come up with next? spare me !!!
Gustav Holst’s “Planets: Mars, the Bringer of war”.
Any song by jedward really as long as they continue to play it on mars and not earth, suppose you’d be asking for a Martian invasion after an hour!
Pink Floyd anyone?
have your say