NASA hasn’t quite sent exploratory missions to actual stars, but the space agency’s mission will collide today with stars of both the celebrity and metaphor varieties.
Musician will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas fame is debuting a new song called, yes, “Reach for the Stars” this afternoon, Aug. 28, at 1:00 PDT/4:00 EDT at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But the music won’t actually be broadcast from the Pasadena, Calif., lab. It will be broadcast from the surface of Mars, where the Curiosity rover is currently mid-investigation.
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According to NASA’s press release about the subject, the song is “a new composition about the singer’s passion for science, technology and space exploration,” with the goal of encouraging kids to get excited about astronomy. And, if twitter activity is any indication, will.i.am is also in the Curiosity rover’s close orbit (pun intended) of friends: for example, he just recorded a song with Britney Spears, who has perhaps the most famous twitter relationship with the rover of any celebrity, and is using the social-media platform to promote today’s broadcast:
#blessed I will be apart of first song ever to be sent from another planet…mars to earth tomorrow go.nasa.gov/U6EJ3P#Curiosity— will.i.am (@iamwill) August 28, 2012
You can watch the event live here on NASA TV to learn about the science behind the broadcast—and, almost as importantly, learn how the man behind “Boom Boom Pow” will rhyme phrases like Schwarzschild radius and magnetosphere.