The OSIRIS-REx sampling mission, a planetary defense prototype named DART and a spacecraft's ambitious journey to a metal world are just some of the highlights
This fall, NASA is all about asteroids. OSIRIS-REx's brought samples from Bennu; Psyche will visit a space rock; and the Lucy spacecraft will fly by an asteroid.
Whether it’s the high-pitched squawk of a dramatically gray, black and white Clark’s nutcracker at Mammoth Lakes, Calif., or the fairy tale music of a Swainson’s thrush singing from your garden bird feeder, these sounds are as varied as human voices and there’s a charm to studying them on your own, using your smartphone or more complicated recording equipment.
If you were old enough to buy CDs in the ’90s, you might remember listening stations at superstores that featured music by some of nature’s noisiest creatures: birds. These CDs blended classical music like Brahms’ lullaby with the plaintive call of a loon, or smooth jazz coupled with the howls of wolves (“Jazz Wolf,” anyone? It was a 1993 classic). Sometimes the composers even threw in a frog ribbit or cricket chirp.