THE NIGHT SKY:
AUDIO SAMPLES

Audio samples from the live performance of The Night Sky

Introduction: Mike Massamino

Mike Massamino describes his journey to becoming a NASA astronaut – culminating with the chance to spacewalk on the Hubble Space Telescope and “look into the universe”.

Original recording (2024)

The Narrator describes Hubble’s impact on how we understand our place within the universe, and that our quest to understand the night sky goes back to the beginnings of humanity...

1 - Introduction featuring Mike Massamino's journey to Hubble

Joseph Haydn ‘The Representation of Chaos’ from The Creation (6’)

Plato

Plato describes the beauty of the heavens, as though drawn by the hand of a great artist.

Adapted from ‘The Republic’ (375 BCE)

2 - Plato describing the heavens

Alan Hovhaness Symphony No.6 ‘Celestial Gate’ (8’ excerpt)

Nicolaus Copernicus

Copernicus battles his fears of alienation, daring to suggest that the earth moves around the sun – rather than human’s being at the centre of the universe.

Adapted from ‘On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres’ (1543)

3 - Copernicus' revolutionary thinking

Gabriel Prokofiev Spheres (4’)

Galileo Galilei

Galileo’s unbridled enthusiasm about his invention of the telescope runs in contrast to his being the first, lonely eyes that brought the moon and the milky way into focus.

Adapted from ‘Sidereus Nuncius’ (1610)

4 - Galileo's invention of the telescope

Ludovico Einaudi Day 3: ‘Full Moon' from Seven Days Walking (4’)

William & Caroline Herschel

The Herschel siblings sit in their back garden in Bath scanning the sky, their perseverance being rewarded by the discovery of a new planet.

Adapted from a letter to the Royal Society (1782)

5 - Herschel's discovery of Uranus

Gustav Holst Uranus ‘The Magician’ from The Planets (6’)

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan speaks passionately of his hopes of an orbiting telescope – what became Hubble – revolutionising our understanding of the cosmos, and ourselves.

Original audio from NASA archive (1981)

6 - Carl Sagan's excitement about the Hubble Space Telescope

Jessie Montgomery Starburst (3.5’)

Carol Jones The Light Thief (3.5’)

Mike Massamino

MIKE MASSAMINO describes the transcendental experience of spacewalking to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, but looking back on the Earth and realising that, perhaps, this is the greatest treasure of all

Original recording (2024)

7 - Mike Massamino's experience of spacewalking on Hubble

Henri Duparc Aux Étoiles (5’)