Noise #135: Hiroshima glass and the birth of the solar system
Scientists find clues within the rubble of nuclear destruction.
Glass spheres, fused during Hiroshima’s WWII nuclear inferno, are giving scientists new insights into the creation of our solar system.
The fireball that killed over 160,000 people in 1945 also caused the concrete and steel of Hiroshima’s buildings to blast apart—and then condense into metal-rich beads of glass as heat and pressure abated. These remnants show “similarities to primitive meteorites called chondrites, which formed from interstellar dust and nebular gas in the early Solar System,” writes Science Alert.
I came up with Noise #135 while reading the Science Alert article for the first time. My music reflects the brittleness of glass, the ease with which life shatters, the story’s strange collision of historical horror with futuristic wonder.
To me ears, Noise #135 also feels cutting and cautionary, haunted and nostalgic. I was blessed to visit Hiroshima as a teenager and remember the eerie vertigo of participating in the city’s annual peace ceremony. Today, music is my best language for remembering Hiroshima as it was and is, and honoring its ghosts.
I hope you enjoy listening.
Wishing you peace,
Michael
(Noise #135 by Michael Gallant. Copyright 2024 Gallant Music LLC. All Rights Reserved. )