World premiere for out-of-this-world 'rock music'
Cambridge Festival audience will experience the melodies of meteorites at ARU
The Bawku meteorite that fell in Ghana in 1989. Photo courtesy of the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
The mysterious properties of meteorites will be transformed into music and performed live during a free Cambridge Festival event hosted by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) on Saturday, 21 March.
Presented by Dr Domenico Vicinanza, an expert in data sonification at ARU, and Dr Carrie Soderman, an earth scientist at the University of Cambridge, the event invites the audience to experience space science and geology in a completely different way.
During Listening to meteorites: Music from the minerals of other worlds, the pair will reveal the hidden beauty of meteorites, some older than Earth itself, by turning their microscopic textures and mineral structures into sound.
The event will focus on basalt and chondrites, two types of rock made of the same minerals, but formed in dramatically different environments.
Basalt is a volcanic rock, formed here on Earth, while chondrites are the most common type of meteorite and among the oldest materials in the Solar System, formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. Chondrites contain spherical structures called chondrules, which contain important information about how solid matter first formed in space.
The sonification software created by Dr Vicinanza analyses microscope images of thin sections of each rock, extracting information about every grain and mapping these details to sound. For example, round grains produce smooth, flowing sounds, whereas angular or elongated grains produce short, sharp sounds. Larger grains produce longer sounds and brighter grains produce higher notes.
Basalt contains crystals grown under gravity and directional forces, resulting in elongated and angular shapes. These are translated into short, percussive, and rhythmically complex sounds. In contrast, chondrites form in microgravity, allowing crystals to grow evenly in all directions, producing rounded structures and smooth continuous sounds.
Dr Vicinanza, Associate Professor of Intelligent Systems and Data Science at ARU, said:
“Carrie and I are thrilled to share this music with the public for the first time at the Cambridge Festival. By looking at thin sections of meteorites under a microscope, we can appreciate their unique patterns and mineral textures, which are unlike anything found on Earth. Sonification translates these details into pitch, rhythm and harmony, making complex geological ideas accessible through sound.
“By converting meteorites into music, we’re allowing the audience to hear how gravity shaped the formation of rocks in space compared with those formed on Earth. It’s an entirely different way of experiencing their origins and we really hope people enjoy listening to this new type of rock music!”
Listening to meteorites: Music from the minerals of other worlds takes place on Saturday, 21 March (11am) and is one of more than 40 free events being hosted by ARU as part of the 2026 Cambridge Festival. To reserve a place, visit https://www.aru.ac.uk/events/cambridge-festival/listening-to-meteorites