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AstroAlert: A Song for the Universe (update)

Hi everyone,
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Back in June, I sent an AstroAlert about an opportunity to sing in a “virtual choir” as part of a tribute to the majesty of the universe revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The can now see and hear the fruits of this project online.
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It’s the brainchild of Eric Whitacre, an American composer known for his choral and orchestral music (he won a Grammy Award in 2012). For the past few years, he has created “virtual choirs” that bring together people from around the world in song. These are not professional singers, they’re just people who enjoy singing and are brave enough to add their voices and videos to the choir. Anybody can join.
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Whitacre’s most recent project is now online. Titled Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of Our Universe, it’s described this way:

Grammy award-winning American composer Eric Whitacre’s symphonic work Deep Field was inspired by the world’s most famous space observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and its greatest discovery – the iconic Deep Field image. The new film – Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of our Universe – illuminates the score by combining Hubble’s stunning imagery, including never-seen-before galaxy fly-bys, with bespoke animations to create an immersive, unforgettable journey from planet Earth to the furthest edges of our universe.

The soundtrack features a new, epic Virtual Choir representing 120 countries: over 8,000 voices aged 4 to 87, alongside the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Eric Whitacre Singers. 

The score and film paint the incredible story of the Hubble Deep Field. Turning its gaze to a tiny and seemingly dark area of space (around one 24-millionth of the sky) and left for a 10-day long exposure, the Hubble Space Telescope revealed over 3,000 galaxies that had never previously been seen, each one composed of hundreds of billions of stars.
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I’m happy to report that Lowell Observatory’s own Bruce Kosaveach participated in the virtual choir, and I hope that others of you did too! My voice has been known to sterilize frogs a quarter-mile away, so I didn’t join in.
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Click below to watch a 30-minute video of the performance, which features stunning images from Hubble and the combined voices of more than 8,000 people!
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