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    How would a piano sound on Mars? Embark on an interplanetary sonic journey

    If the Universe is born and no one is present to hear it, does it still make a sound? Well, theoretically, yes. As this video from the US filmmaker John D Boswell (also known as Melodysheep) explores, where a ‘thick soup of atoms’ is present, sound is possible. Made in collaboration with the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, this short documentary deploys dramatic CGI visuals, a pulsing score and the voices of prominent scientists to explore the sounds of space – from those humanity has recorded to those we can only speculate about. While ostensibly an interplanetary journey, The Sounds of Space is perhaps most intriguing when viewed as an exploration of the physics of sound, and the science of how we’ve evolved to receive soundwaves right here on Earth.

    Video by Melodysheep

    22 July 2021
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    videoPhysics

    Is it possible to see sound? Yes, but it takes some crafty photographic wizardry

    3 minutes

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    Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets

    31 minutes

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    videoPhysics

    Imagining spacetime as a visible grid is an extraordinary journey into the unseen

    12 minutes

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    videoAstronomy

    The history of astronomy is a history of conjuring intelligent life where it isn’t

    34 minutes

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    videoPhysics

    Why the apparent flatness of space is an enduring cosmological mystery

    4 minutes

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    videoCosmology

    We are born of supernovas – our spectacular and totally ordinary origin story

    4 minutes

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    videoSpace exploration

    How do you message an alien? Carl Sagan offers some simple suggestions

    8 minutes

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    videoHistory of science

    Prelude to the space age – the 1960 film that inspired ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

    28 minutes