Between Mars and Jupiter

Rebecca Farmer

January 6th, 2025

Major: BA in Music with an Emphasis in Composition

Genre/Medium: Classical Contemporary Piece, Graphic Score

About the work:

“Between Mars and Jupiter” is a contemporary classical duet inspired by the orbital patterns of the asteroid Psyche, which orbits between the two planets. This piece takes the listener on a sonic journey through space, drawing on the mysterious and dynamic motion of Psyche’s trajectory. The work incorporates open instrumentation, allowing it to be performed by a wide variety of musicians and in diverse venues. The piece features a graphic score and aleatoric notation, which are featured on the panels of the Psyche spacecraft launched on October 13, 2023.

The score offers fragments of melody and motif that evoke the iconic themes from Gustav Holst’s The Planets, specifically Mars and Jupiter. These references are not exact quotations but rather abstracted gestures, allowing the performers to creatively interpret and shape the material within the framework of the piece. The aleatoric nature of the notation grants the performers flexibility, enabling them to make decisions about how these fragments unfold over time. This unique approach fosters collaboration and improvisation, making each performance of Between Mars and Jupiter a distinctive and dynamic experience.

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Psyche Inspired is a program that brings undergraduate students from any discipline or major together to share the excitement, innovation, and scientific and engineering content of NASA’s Psyche mission with the public in new ways through artistic and creative works. This year’s Psyche Inspired cohort is known as the Iridium Class. These works are posted in the gallery and highlighted on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. View the full resolution images in the image gallery. There are many ways to get involved with NASA’s Psyche mission. Learn how you can be a part of the Psyche mission through our “Get Involved” pages at https://psyche.asu.edu/get-involved/ and https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/ways-to-participate/. To learn more about the overall Psyche mission, visit nasa.gov/psyche or jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche.

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