Wheel of Stars makes music from the sky

Tired of listening to the moon? Then take your ears to the stars with Jim Bumgardner’s Wheel of Stars. Jim grabbed a bunch of freely-available data from the Hipparcos mission, and set it up like a music box to see what the sky might sound like. This is accomplished by making a projection of the stars as they appear from earth, then slowly spinning it around the north star, as illustrated below. The stars act like the pins on a music box, and are triggered when they cross the red line. The particular sound each makes is based on temperature, brightness and distance from the North Star. [via boingboing]