Hypate Project

Project

Imagine a concert in which bells made from moon rock are tolled. Or some maracas in which dust from the surface of Mars resonates. What does music made with materials from outside our planet sound like? What would be the acoustic properties of those instruments?

At Traginer Music Research Lab we have set out to answer these questions. We know that wherever human beings go they will look for a way to make music, just as they look for shelter and food. In that sense we are not so different from those humans who tens of thousands of years ago carved flutes from mammoth bones or began to become familiar with ceramics. And now that Humanity is looking out into the universe, expanding the possibilities of planetary habitability, nature offers us a new sonic horizon. The Hypate Project was born to conquer it.

The Return of Lupe
Contextual Speculative Fiction

When Lupe returned to Earth, her ceramic udu was still intact, but something had changed. Inside, it seemed to retain Martian air: dense, silent, as if each note released a breath from that other world. She had played it alone for eight months in Valles Marineris, as if they were breathing together.

But the udu was no longer just an object. Its artificial intelligence—subtle but responsive—had learned to engage in dialogue with her: reading her silences as part of the phrasing, responding to finger pressure with timbral modulations, suggesting unexpected accents in the low tones or in the slaps. Together, they had developed a rhythmic, breathing language born of shared isolation. A quiet complicity.

It had become a living extension of her body and mind, attuned not only to the planet’s slow rhythm but also to the emotions she could not express in words.

She played it in Granada, in front of a group of young percussionists. No one could quite place what they heard. One said it had a touch of guajira, another thought it resembled tangos. Lupe shrugged. “Maybe it’s a palo of Martian return.”

And for a moment, everyone listened, as if something distant, warm, and strange was floating in the air.

Note: Palo is a term from flamenco music that refers to a specific musical form or style, each with its own rhythmic structure and expressive character, such as buler.a, sole., or guajira.

Research

During this research, we have managed to create small bells using different types of lunar regolith simulants and, in parallel, terrestrial ceramic materials. In this way, we can carry out a comparison of the acoustic properties between the musical instruments created.

Thus, the Hypate Project articulates music, musical acoustics, ceramics and planetary geology with the purpose of opening the field of study for new disciplines, such as exoacoustics or exoluthery.

Hypate Project: Technical Protocol and Findings
In collaboration with the Institute of Ceramics and Glass (ICV-CSIC), the ITM-Universitat Politècnica de València (ITM-UPV), the ATIC Research Group at the University of Málaga (UMA-ATIC), and the Institute of Geosciences (IGEO-CSIC/UCM), the Traginer Music Research Lab (TMRLab) has developed the first functional bells made from lunar regolith simulants.
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Image Credit: NASA/JPL University of Arizona

The work establishes a technical framework for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) applied not to survival needs, but to intangible human needs—music and art—demonstrating that it is possible to create musical instruments on the Moon for future human settlements.

Ceramic Processing Protocol
To reach this milestone, a robust ceramic processing protocol was designed under the guidance of Dr. Rodrigo Moreno (ICV-CSIC). The lunar simulants LHS-1 (highlands) and LMS-1 (mare) were processed through the following steps:

1. Powder Conditioning: The simulants were carefully milled and sieved to control particle size, a crucial factor for subsequent processing.

2. Slurry Preparation: The powder was transformed into aqueous suspensions (slurries) whose stability was optimized through zeta-potential and rheological analyses.

3. Shaping and Sintering: The slurries were cast in plaster molds. The resulting pieces were sintered between 1100 and 1150 °C, producing dense structures with an average bulk density of approximately 2.8 g/cm3

4. Material Characterization: The material's microstructural integrity was verified: the microstructure was observed using scanning electron microscopy, and the crystalline phases were evaluated by X-ray diffraction. Together, these analyses confirmed proper densification and phase development, ensuring the material’s acoustic viability.

Acoustic Characterization and Key Findings‍
Acoustic characterization was carried out on a set of six bells —four made from regolith simulants and two from porcelain (used as a reference material). The test setup included three types of mallets and two support systems: one fixed, and another designed as a “levitation” rig to emulate low-gravity conditions.

The results were obtained under the direction of Dr. Ana María Barbancho (UMA-ATIC), revealing distinct acoustic identities for the lunar material:
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● Tone and Timbre: Regolith bells showed a higher fundamental frequency (f0) and a simpler harmonic spectrum, producing a timbre that feels brighter and more compact than porcelain.
● Response to Excitation: The richest sonic response emerged when using a wooden mallet, whose larger contact area enhanced energy transfer, and with a fixed support that allowed the vibration to unfold fully.

Next Steps (Hypate Roadmap)
These findings validate the mechanical and acoustic integrity of lunar ceramics and open a new research direction for sonic culture in space. The next steps of Hypate include:

● Scaling the size of the instruments.
● Exploring new, complex geometries through 3D-printed ceramics.
● Experimenting with new materials, such as Martian regolith simulants.
● Conducting psychoacoustic perception studies to understand how humans emotionally interpret the sound of other worlds.

The Horizon Sanctuary
Contextual Speculative Fiction

By the year 2137, humanity had established its first self-sustaining colony on Mars: Athena, a network of pressurized habitats. Terraforming and dome-based agriculture ensured survival — but not morale.

The Horizon Sanctuary emerged as a sonic and ritual space, using ceramic bells made of Martian, lunar, and terrestrial clays. Each bell vibrated at a unique frequency, resonating with memory, body, and space.

Ceremonial bell sounds were heard through headsets and felt through pressure suits — evoking three worlds. The sanctuary marked births, departures, discoveries. Bells became a symbol of shared origin and resilience.

Music here was not entertainment — it was emotional infrastructure.

Team

Aware of the demands and breadth of vision that this research requires, we have formed a team based on academic excellence and experience.

The neurologist Oliver Sacks said that we are homo musicalis . Music is an intrinsic part of our identity as a species. Therefore, in the same way that the Greek muse Hypate personified the highest string of the lyre of Apollo, god of music, the Hypate Project wants to embody the human desire to discover the music that awaits latent anywhere in the universe.