NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 · The Earth Information Jukebox

Orbit Records

Drop in a NASA record and hear how the Earth sounds. Every image or video from the Earth Information Center becomes a piece for five instruments.

1Pick a record
2Press play
3See what each track reads

How the melody is builtClick a card to see the filter at work on the record that is loaded.

MoodThe page text picks the mood and the instruments.
ReadingEvery eighth note reads one window of the image.
PitchWarmth sets the mode; activity and blob position set the notes.
RhythmContrast drives the bass; change drives the arpeggio.
TempoMore activity is faster and louder, and the last bar leads straight back into the first, so the loop never stops.
MemoryA bar that resembles an earlier one repeats its motif.

01Pick a record Earth Information Center gallery

Loading the gallery…

Test images

Bring your own record: NASA SVS link or file

Or drag a video or image downloaded from the SVS here

02On the turntable

No record on the turntable

Image reading mode Mood of the piece

Context

Title Description (read from the page; edit or paste another)

Piece settings

Bars in the loop Key

Base tempo: 84 bpm (the piece speeds up and holds back on its own) Colour scale of the visualization

Scale min. Scale max. Unit

Narration for screen readers

V1Activity V2Largest blob A1Warmest point A2Dominant hue BSharpest edge

Press Play or the space bar.

03The 5 readers: what each track looks at

Read each card from top to bottom: the image as that track sees it (with the dashed outline of the reading window), A what it measures, B the filter applied, C the value it measures right now and D what it decides in the music.

Press Play to watch each reading live.

04Mixer: 5 tracks

Track	Instrument	Image parameter	Playing	Volume	Mute	Solo

05Data and dynamics per bar

Activity (voice 1) Shape: number of blobs (voice 2) Warmth (harmony) Colour hue (arpeggio) Contrast (bass) Grey area: dynamics · ↺ recalls a bar · ↗ prepares a peak · ◆ sudden jump

06Methodology: from data to score

Everything you hear comes from measurements made on the pixels of the source. The rules that turn measurements into music are declared composition conventions (not physical laws): here they are, with the real numbers of this moment.

1Values measured across the whole source 0–1 scale, fixed elements excluded

Load a source to measure it.

2Mood of the piece

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3Score each rectangle is a note; click one to see which data it comes from

Click a note in the score to see the data, the rule and the result.

4Decision table for the bar that is playing

Track	Measured data	Rule	Result
Press Play or load a source.

5Limits and reproducibility

The measurements come from pixels (luminance, colour, edges), not physical units: 80 % “warmth” is not a temperature. The colour scale is only interpreted if the source declares it.
The values of each bar are normalized with the range of the source itself; if a measurement hardly varies (less than 0.04) its absolute value is used so noise is not amplified.
The mood comes from the words of the context (a declared lexicon). The app does not recognise objects in the image.
Instruments are chosen with a reproducible calculation from the source identifier: it is a design decision, not data.
The same data, reading mode and settings give the same score (there is no randomness). With video, each browser’s decoder may vary the frames slightly.

Score fingerprint: —