You should know.
We discovered an oddity—an exoplanet that forces us to rethink the nature of time. On recording its signature over the course of a few months we think it is probably tidally locked—one hemisphere of the planet always faces the sun, while the other always faces away.
At first, not much was known about it other than this. Since it is likely tidally locked, we could imagine a generic topography: bright and dry on the side that faces the sun; dark and cold on the side facing away; a ring of liquid where the bright and dark meet. From any point on the planet’s surface, the “sun” would always remain in the same position in the sky.
Life on a tidally locked planet is hard because of the harsh weather conditions, and it was probably best to move on. But then it occurred to us to sonify our observations, and the sound tells a very different story. The planet, it turns out, is very much active. Musical, even. Many of us suspect that it is caused by some kind of life. If this is life as we know it, how does it work? Is it driven forward, or does it remain unchanging, mirroring the static sun in the sky?
Here is a speculative simulation of this planet in its system putting together the basics of what we know, including the sonification. Explore the outer rims of the planet.
The signals from this planet (which may not even be a planet) sound uncannily Earth-like. They even seem to be ordered chronologically—walking on this planet would be like walking through the ages of the Earth; and not only past, but future.
Is it possible our future could be found there? Could all of the Earth temporally exist there, all of its ages simultaneously realized?
Some of us believe it is a prophecy to be revealed, the planet’s existence too powerful a portent to dismiss. They write:
It speaks in what we know as music,
In pregnant silences and intelligent symphonies,
It is alive, performing by being.
Imagine being a traveler in this world,
A traveler for whom time waits,
A traveler who can move time.
Most others consider it coincidence, baseless meaning-making.
I, teetering from one side to the other, can’t help but wonder about the cause of this intergalactic connection. But what troubles me the most is: if we walked along the circumference of the planet, we would end up where we started. In our perception, at least, we would return to the same time and space.
Alap Parikh is an artist, director, and developer focusing on immersive experiences. He is fascinated by the creation of stories that explore the peculiarities of reality and human perception, and the re-interpretation of narrative in participatory mediums of art.
Sultan Barodawala is an immersive artist, designer and filmmaker currently based in Brooklyn, New York. His work explores our relationship to space and time through immersive technologies.
