Surely you’re tempted to believe that the title is a bad joke, but it’s nothing more than what NASA scientists have in mind. Trees and a machine could team up for a public art and science project known as “The Tree of Life”, which implies getting a spacecraft in low Earth orbit to sing along with trees.
CNET.com brings the news about the intriguing new idea. Julia Christensen, who is president of the Space Song Foundation, declared as quoted by the same source:
As the light, water and temperature at the trees change, so does the tune, the volume and the actual sound of the song.
As also quoted by CNET.com, the idea “connects Earth and outer space through a song, which is sent via radio waves between an orbiting spacecraft and an unlikely technological component: a set of live trees that have been activated to operate as large, living antenna systems.”
Changes from the environment of the trees will be detected by digital sensors. A spacecraft will pick up data points transposed into sonic frequencies due to the involvement of custom software. The spacecraft will also be revealing its operational capacity by beaming back its own data.
Christensen, who is chair of the studio art program at Oberlin College, revealed more as quoted by CNET.com:
In the short term, we hear shifts in the song as day turns to night, as clouds pass over the tree, as seasons change, etc.
But over the very long term — decades or centuries — we will hear major global shifts in climate and other changes on our planet.
The collaboration is expected to last for roughly two centuries, which means that there’s plenty of time to see if the idea is good or not.
Feel free to share with us your own opinion on the news of “The Tree of Life”!
