Strauss’s Blue Danube beamed into space as Vienna celebrates with concert
Travelling at the speed of light, the music was expected to overtake Voyager 1 within 23 hours.
Strauss’s Blue Danube waltz has finally made it into space, nearly half a century after missing a ride on Nasa’s twin Voyager spacecraft.
The European Space Agency’s big radio antenna in Spain beamed the waltz into the cosmos on Saturday.
Operators aimed the dish at Voyager 1, the world’s most distant spacecraft, more than 15 billion miles away.
Travelling at the speed of light, the music was expected to overtake Voyager 1 within 23 hours.
The Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed the Blue Danube during the space transmission, which actually sent up a version from rehearsal.
It is part of a year-long celebration marking the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss, who was born in Vienna in 1825.
The Strauss space send-off also marks the 50th anniversary of ESA’s founding.
Launched in 1977 and now in interstellar space, each of the two Voyagers carries a Golden Record full of music but nothing from Strauss.
His Blue Danube holds special meaning for space fans, as it is featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
