Another Album by SOSP – Data Sonification
‘Hidden Melodies of the KP Index’ album released on Bandcamp by Sounds of Space Project is inspired by measurements of geomagnetic activity as monitored by the Kp index. The index ranges from 0 for quiet conditions to 9 for the most severe conditions, an index that looks somewhat similar to a medieval score. This album has its data sonified, then imbibed with the flavours of early chant, jazz and ambience.
Why is the KP index important?
Dr Nigel Meredith writes ‘ At the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) we use the Kp index and forecasts of the Kp index to drive our space weather models and forecasts. The forecasts, which extend up to 1 day ahead, are updated every hour and presented on the web. They are used by satellite operators and engineers, space insurers, and satellite designers. We also provide high level risk indicators for satellites in geosynchronous orbit, medium Earth orbit and the slot region. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration use the Kp index to define their space weather scale for geomagnetic storms. The scale is used to communicate the current and future space weather conditions and their potential effects to the general public’.
A New Collaborator
Our cross-disciplinary collaboration as the Sounds of Space Project expands to include Professor Mervyn Freeman, leader of the Space Weather and Atmosphere team at BAS.
The sonic vision by Professor Kim Cunio, is that the Kp index when sonified could be like ‘written music’ that looks like early Christian chant, a lead sheet that has the angular leaps of modern jazz, and a series of interlocking musical lines that can be fused to make something ambient – we could reveal the Hidden Melodies of the Kp Index.
The album artwork by Diana and Nigel is a blended image comprising of a bar plot of the evolution of the Kp index as a function of time for solar rotation 2453 and a spectrogram of the musical response which we hear in the first track on the album.