A timeless piece of music is about to cross time and space.
On May 31, the iconic waltz “The Blue Danube” by Johann Strauss II will be broadcast into space in celebration of both the composer’s 200th birthday and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) 50th anniversary.
Performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the music will be transmitted via a parabolic antenna in Cebreros, Spain. The pre-recorded version—captured during the final rehearsal—will be transformed into radio signals in real-time and launched into the cosmos at the speed of light.
It will take just 1.5 minutes to reach the Moon, 4.5 minutes to Mars, 37 minutes to Jupiter, and about 4 hours to Neptune. Within 24 hours, it will pass Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft ever launched, now beyond our solar system.
This event follows a tradition of cosmic music tributes. In 2008, NASA broadcast “Across the Universe” by The Beatles toward Polaris. In 2023, Missy Elliott’s “The Rain” was sent toward Venus. Meanwhile, will.i.am’s “Reach for the Stars” was rebroadcast from Mars in 2012.
Though the Voyager Golden Record—curated in 1977 by Carl Sagan—features music by Bach, Mozart, and Stravinsky, Strauss was notably absent. Now, Vienna’s tourism board seeks to correct that “cosmic oversight” by sending the world’s most famous waltz into the stars.
Immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Blue Danube is finally embarking on its own journey across the final frontier.