Episode 042: The Pillars of Creation

In which we discuss infrared telescopes, cosmic dust, and Isaac Asimov

In a fun and futuristic way to start the new year, I was checking out some deep-space photos. You know the ones taken with that especially fancy new James Webb Space Telescope? Can’t help but think of Star Wars, Star Trek, Foundation and the like.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!

I can see how conspiracy theorists who don't believe that we've ever been in outer space might point to these photos as proof of a grand hoax. They're just so outlandish looking, they seem like they must have been made in Photoshop. 

And of all the countless, non-hoax, stunning space photos taken over the years, I have one clear favorite: NASA’s  The Pillars of Creation.

The Pillars of Creation, NASA, 2018

The Webb telescope has taken some outstanding updated shots of the Pillars, all super high-res and colorful and nifty. But for me, nothing surpasses the original 2018 shot taken with the Hubble Telescope. 

From NASA:

“These towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas sit at the heart of M16, or the Eagle Nebula. The aptly named Pillars of Creation, featured in this stunning Hubble image, are part of an active star-forming region within the nebula and hide newborn stars in their wispy columns.”

Towering tendrils of cosmic dust??? That sounds like it’s straight out of a science fiction novel. (Again: not a hoax.)

Also, it kind of looks like Dio giving the horns. Which will make me smile forever.

The Pillars of Creation - Reduction

My piece on Kusama’s The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away was an earlier take on floating-through-space music. This, though…this is a whole new bargain. This needed to be dramatic and soaring.

We’re hurtling through space here, folks.

Space-opera-worthy music was called for. Spooky, ethereal voices singing along with strings on a theme that has no grounding notes, no major or minor tonality…very zooming along!

And I wanted it to sound like we were moving fast, very very fast. So even though the beat is only around 100 bpm, the rolling, repeating bassline keeps this baby moving.

I couldn’t help myself, the breakdown finds me playing some disjointed, very high-pitched synth lines which I meant to sound like some radio interference. Instead, it came out sounding like a theremin that just found out it won the lottery.

Then finally after the drop, back to the main theme but with a classic ‘70s space-age sounding synth added…we’re hurtling, all right.

Ok, science fiction nerd-out time. [Isn’t that what we’ve already been doing?]

Can't talk about all this without talking some classic sci-fi, and for that we need to go back to Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. I read these books when I was a teenager, and while there were earlier space travel science fiction books [H.G. Wells, Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, even C.S. Lewis], the Foundation books were either directly or indirectly the inspiration for virtually every major science fiction world since. 

I mean, Star Wars is incredible of course, but George Lucas did a lot more than be inspired by Foundation.

Also: not a hoax.

---

Until next week, thanks for reading Polyester City. If you have any thoughts, please leave a comment by clicking the link above. If you know anyone who likes Music and Art and Stories [and Ronnie James Dio!], which is pretty much everyone, please consider sharing by clicking the link below.