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Release Date: 2023-08-06Label: Human Geography Recordings
Drew was Composer in Residence for the school of Astrophysics at the University of Glasgow; it was here that the recordings of Pulsars and Cosmic Background Radiation were sourced and can now finally be heard.The release date of this work coincides with the 56 year anniversary of the discovery of CP1919 on a Summer afternoon in Cambridgeshire.
Track 1: CP1919
On August 6th 1967, while working on data analysis at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory near Cambridge, Jocelyn Bell, a graduate student noticed an anomaly. She described the signal as being a series of distinct pulses that appeared every 1.377 seconds and originating from the VULPECULA constellation, by Christmas the same year, she noted three more.
With the official announcement the following January the press excited that a woman was at the heart of the discovery began asking Bell such insightful questions as whether she was taller than Princess Margaret and how many boyfriends she had. I wonder if they also wanted to know whose shirts she wore.
By December 1968, the noted astronomer Thomas Gold identified ‘’Pulsars’’ as extremely dense stars formed from material following a supernova adding that they had strong magnetic fields that when coupled with its rapid rotation produced a distinct electromagnetic radiation beam that sweeps around as the star spins akin to the beam from a lighthouse.
The first Pulsar was given the designation CP1919 (Cambridge Pulsar Right Ascension 19h 19m).
Track 2: Cosmic background microwave radiation
On May 20th 1964, radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were attempting to find the source of an inexplicable buzz throughout their equipment at Bell Labs’ antenna in New Jersey. After many futile attempts, including the removal of pigeons from the telescopes’ horn, they realised ( after much consideration) that what they had actually been listening to was Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation.
CBMR is made up from the cooled remnant of material formed 380,000 years ago following the Big Bang.
Therefore Penzias & Wilsons’ landmark discovery placed the Big Bang Theory on a solid foundation suggesting that the cosmos grew from a single point 13.8 billion years ago.