ESA and the Metropole Orkest: 'Children of the Sun'
ESA and the Dutch Metropole Orkest are joining forces to pay tribute to an extraordinary celestial body, a beautiful but terrifying giant that lives in space, 150 million kilometres from Earth.
This giant that provides light, warmth and nourishment to life on Earth, in the oceans and in the air, but it could also endanger our modern technological society with its powerful solar flares.
We're talking about the Sun, at the centre of our Solar System, which has been a source of inspiration since the dawn of human civilisation, and we must do our best to better understand this giant.
Solar Orbiter, an ESA mission in collaboration with NASA, was launched in February 2020 and is the most complex scientific laboratory ever sent to the Sun. With this mission, we'll be taking some of the closest ever images, observing the solar wind and the Sun’s polar regions like never before, and unravelling the mysteries of the solar cycle.
Introduced by the well-known Dutch TV presenter Twan Huys, and using the music inspired by the Sun and fascinating images from the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft, ESA scientist Mark McCaughrean takes you on a journey around our nearest star.
Composers Tijn Wybenga and Corrie van Binsbergen wrote new music for this concert series, played by the Metropole Orkest, one of the world's leading pop and jazz orchestras, on tour across the Netherlands in April 2023.
In the coming years, we hope to use the data that Solar Orbiter collects to answer some profound questions about the behaviour of this star, questions that are important for not only humankind but all life on Earth. After all, we are all ‘children of the Sun’.
More tour details and tickets here.
