

SONG: “Janssen.”
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on “Scientists just analyzed the atmosphere of a ‘super-Earth’ for the first time,” Washington Post, 16 Feb. 2016, as used in the post “Alien atmospheres.”
ABSTRACT:
Janssen is an alien planet. Like, really alien – orbiting around a sun that’s not our own. Way, way, way away.
And now we know what it would be like to breathe there.
We know it’s got hydrogen and carbon, and it’s really big, so a lot of that carbon is probably diamonds or diamond-like. It’s also kind of hot, so the hydrogen might be… well, either in some pretty stable compounds or else burning.
Which is not hospitable, but kind of beautiful, if you think about what the color combinations must be like.
Also, the fact that we’ve figured this out from transits – from watching the starlight change as it passes through the planet’s atmosphere – that’s also quite a thing, isn’t it?
Recording this song was unusually easy. It started as a guitar thing strummed on a couch, which then turned into a (fake) Hammond on the computer with a couple guitar tracks, and then some layers of voice. I should play more (real) organ, I think.
Penitential cover still forthcoming.
LYRICS:
Breathe
With mechanical lungs
Pull in the poisonous air
As diamonds form in your footstepsThis world is beautiful
Hydrogen and coal
Filtering starlight
Burning us wholeHere on Janssen
Fly
On our chemical wings
Beyond this gravity’s tide
As the transiting guides usThis world is beautiful
Hydrogen and coal
Filtering starlight
Burning us wholeHere on Janssen
Here on Janssen