Proyecto Hypate

Proyecto Investigación Equipo Multimedia

Proyecto

Imagina un concierto en el que se tañen unas campanas hechas a partir de roca lunar. O unas maracas en las que resuena polvo de la superficie de Marte. ¿A qué suena la música hecha con materiales de fuera de nuestro planeta? ¿Cuáles serían las propiedades acústicas de esos instrumentos?
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En Traginer Music Research Lab nos hemos propuesto responder a estas preguntas. Sabemos que allá donde vaya el ser humano buscará la manera de hacer música, al igual que busca cobijo y alimento. En ese sentido no somos tan distintos de aquellos humanos que hace decenas de miles de años tallaban flautas en huesos de mamut o comenzaban a familiarizarse con la cerámica. Y ahora que la Humanidad se asoma al universo ensanchando las posibilidades de habitabilidad planetaria, la naturaleza nos ofrece un nuevo horizonte sonoro. El Proyecto Hypate nace para conquistarlo.

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.

Investigación

Durante esta investigación, hemos logrado crear pequeñas campanas empleando diferentes tipos de simulantes de regolito lunar y, paralelamente, materiales cerámicos terrestres. De este modo, podremos llevar a cabo una comparativa de las propiedades acústicas entre los instrumentos musicales creados. Para alcanzar este hito, hemos empleado técnicas convencionales y no convencionales de manufactura, como la sinterización por microondas, la sinterización por plasma de chispa o la impresión 3D cerámica.
‍La meta final, a medio plazo, es emplear regolito real, lunar y marciano, para dar vida a los instrumentos previamente testados con el simulante. Quizás en pocos años estos instrumentos se utilicen en conciertos en nuestro planeta (o, quién sabe, en otros mundos).
‍Así, el Proyecto Hypate articula música, acústica musical, cerámica y geología planetaria con el propósito de abrir el campo de estudio para nuevas disciplinas, como la exoacústica o la exoluthería.

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.

Equipo

Conscientes de la exigencia y de la amplitud de miras que esta investigación requiere hemos formado un equipo basado en la excelencia académica y la experiencia.

‍Decía el neurólogo Oliver Sacks que somos homo musicalis. La música forma parte intrínseca de nuestra identidad como especie. Por eso, del mismo modo que la musa griega Hípate personificaba la cuerda más alta de la lira de Apolo, dios de la música, el Proyecto Hypate quiere encarnar el anhelo humano de descubrir la música que espera latente en cualquier lugar del universo.