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High School Student Creates Music From Soundscape Of Exploding Stars

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supernovae music
Vanya Agrawal creates her sonification with a computer and MIDI board. (Photo courtesy of Vanya Agrawal)

Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, June 6,  2024:

  • Music can come from anywhere. And for one Southern California high school student, she looked towards the stars for inspiration. Vanya Agrawal was a senior this year at Palos Verdes High School, west of Long Beach. For a science class, she decided to take new data from a project hosted at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory called the “Zwicky Transient Facility” into music.
  • President Joe Biden signed an executive order this week that shuts off asylum to most migrants who enter the country illegally. But it has critics on both sides of the political divide.
  • Riverside County Supervisors voted this week to give themselves and other elected officials raises of up to 28%. The proposal faced pushback from many members of the community and at least one supervisor, who said raises make sense when the county can afford it.

High Schooler Creates New “Space Music”

There are stars exploding all around us. They burst, flash and fade. Some leave visions of their spectacular journeys in telescopes. And a high school student recently turned supernovae data into a piece of music.

Vanya Agrawal was a senior this year at Palos Verdes High School, west of Long Beach. Always into music, she also became interested in astronomy and physics and was wondering if she could combine the three. So she decided to take new data from a project hosted at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory to create a piece of music.   

That’s where data sonification comes in. Just as researchers design graphs and diagrams to create visual mapping of their data, Agrawal was able to develop audio mapping of data from stars.

Local, State Leaders Respond To President Biden’s Asylum Order

President Joe Biden announced Tuesday he is allowing United States immigration officials to deport migrants without processing asylum claims once a certain cap has been reached.

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Biden’s executive order shuts down processing of asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border once the average number of daily requests reaches 2,500.

Some Republicans in California criticized Biden’s executive order, saying more urgent action is needed. And some immigration advocates said Biden’s order is straight out of the Donald Trump playbook.

Riverside County Supervisors Vote To Boost Their Own Pay

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors has formally approved double-digit pay raises for themselves and five other elected officials in the county.

This comes despite public criticism about the raises, especially with the challenges many in the community are facing with inflation. Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who has refused raises for himself since he was elected in 2012, voted against the proposal, saying raises should only come when the county can afford it.

 

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