<<  -- 5 --  Kelly Ferjutz    MUSIC IN THE SPACING OF THE SPHERES

MERCURY is a traveler, epitomized by a scherzo, but grounded by the deep bass of the contrabassoon. Mercury rotates slowly, every 59 days as it zooms around the sun every 88 days. As a result, the sun seems to rise, then stop and move backward in the sky before reversing course again and ultimately setting 176 earth days later. All the while, the side facing the sun is literally basted with solar heat. As a result, the planet's surface has greater temperature extremes than any other, ranging from a high of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit to lows of minus 290 degrees.

JUPITER is good-natured and jolly, with rich, lush unison strings as background. Jupiter is 300+ times more massive than earth, and at last count had 63 moons! It is a gas planet, with an icy core surrounded by liquid and gaseous hydrogen and methane and water and ammonia clouds, which produce visible patterns that can be observed to twirl with the grace of ballet dancers, producing a vision rather unlike the menacing Jupiter of mythology ... There are several large bands of wind moving up to 300 miles per hour in opposite directions at different latitudes along the planet ... similar to, but far more stable than the jet stream on earth, and have remained unchanged for over 90 years of observation ...

SATURN -- the senior citizen of the bunch -- is deliberate, with ethereal melodies from the winds over the steady beats of the low strings. Saturn is a gassy giant, composed largely of hydrogen and helium. Recently, cameras from the spectacular probe Cassini captured the earth as a tiny pale blue dot beside its rings. While Saturn has 56 known moons, it is best known for the remarkable rings, extremely thin disks made of tiny particles of ice and dust. Almost two years ago, the Huygens' probe, hitchhiking aboard Cassini, landed safely and broadcast dramatic photos of dirty hydrocarbon coated water ice and methane streams underneath an orange sky -- straight out of a science fiction novel.

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