We perceive light–we see it—but what we see and what it means are not the same. Without context, detail means nothing.

Oh, there are so many factors at play here: what wavelengths of light can we see, how well can our brains take what we see and turn it into something we understand?

And also, how do we compare ourselves to the thing we’re observing? What tools do we use to help us capture information? How do we turn light into data, data into pixels, pixels into meaning? Start with a planet.

For example, Earth. And as long as we’re at it, let’s tip the Earth to spin properly on its axis. Now, recall our original points of light. Our idea.

These are satellites in orbit. Satellites collect data as the Earth rotates beneath them.

Think of satellites as paint brushes working in reverse: instead of painting planets with light, satellites collect light reflected from planets below. With enough data we can paint a world.

Data that make this image come from instruments on two NASA satellites called AQUA and TERRA. These instruments see the Earth in what we might regard as “natural color.”

They can also see certain events as they happen. There, splattered like white paint on a blue canvas, something important: Hurricane Katrina.

These satellites are only two of many that can see hurricanes. The stripes you see building up come from a unique spacecraft called TRMM. Among the many remarkable things TRMM can do, it can look inside hurricanes like nothing else in the world.

See for yourself. TRMM sees the actual body of the beast in three dimensions. Orange and red zones indicate higher rainfall rates. Cloud spires called hot towers drive the storm’s greedy grab for energy.

The Earth changes. It breathes. And it surprises. Though we live on a planet largely covered by water, we often forget that huge tracts are frozen solid. Let’s change the perspective.

Ice covers much of the world. The eternally frozen parts are called the Cryosphere. It’s the planet’s thermostat, and a hydrological warehouse, and in terms of a changing climate, it’s the canary in a coalmine.

You may live your whole life and never visit these places, but these places will affect your life nonetheless.

You know this place. The Moon. Earth’s closest neighbor is little more than a beautiful stranger across an airless room. There are mysteries here and answers. And, like love, perhaps, destiny.

Back on Earth, day and night change like moods, with points of light pricking the darkness like vaguely remembered dreams. City lights shine into space at night, like ancient campfires, like candles of civilization.

No other place beyond the Earth shows signs of life like this, or shows signs of life at all. But we’re looking.

Before we can find life elsewhere, we need to be good at reading its signs at home first. And on Earth, life is everywhere.

This is the living Earth: the biosphere. Phytoplankton bloom in vast oceanic fields. Land plants pulse rhythmically with seasonal growth. Together, these sound the global heartbeat, the pulse of life powered by the sun.

The Sun. All energy on Earth comes from the sun.

The Moon…the Earth…the Sun: celestial spheres we see and feel everyday. But in our solar neighborhood, there are other places, too. Fabulous places. Mysterious places.

As a tourist destination, Mars has an impressive brochure. The longest, deepest canyon in the solar system. A volcano so high it’s peak climbs above most of the Martian atmosphere. Nothing like these places exists on Earth. Nothing.

This is from a NASA mission called WMAP. If the whole universe were a person, this would be its first baby picture. There are no stars here, no galaxies, certainly no planets. But there is energy. The rest came soon enough, once the new kid could collect herself.

This is the universe we see today. It’s a lively place. That’s a gamma ray burst, spotted by NASA’s “SWIFT” satellite. These cosmic blasts have long puzzled scientists. They may be stars collapsing in upon themselves, or two densely packed remnants of stars merging together.

But in either case, scientists believe they herald the births of black holes. They’re the most powerful explosions in the universe after the Big Bang. And they seem to happen all the time, as often as once a day.

We look outwards as much as we look inwards, for if there is any certainty in the journey of knowledge it’s that travel in any direction can lead to the same destination.

We see only what we look for, and in space and on Earth we seek the wisdom to ask the right questions.

Duration : 0:13:13

Technorati Tags: astronomy, Black, burst, einstein, Gamma, grb, Hole, hubble, hurricane, Jupiter, katrina, Light, Mars, Moon, NASA, planets, ray, Saturn, solar, space, Sun, supernova, swift, System, telescopes, universe, wmap

Pictures were found at http://www.sxc.hu

Duration : 0:4:46

Technorati Tags: collide, crowbar, fellows, metal, odd, planets, rest, Rock

Oh oh oh, watching the planets
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh, watching the planets align

Oh oh oh, what is the reason?
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh, I got no reason to lie

Yes yes yes, killing the ego
Yes yes yes alright
Yes yes yes, killing the ego tonight

No no no, I got no secrets
No no no no no
No no no, I got not secrets to hide

Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh

See, the sun’s gonna rise
See, the sun’s gonna rise
And take your fears away
Like the soft tit on the motherbrain

Oh oh oh, finding the answer
Oh oh oh oh oh
Finding that there ain’t no answer to find

Oh oh oh, watching the planets
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh, watching the planets align

Oh oh oh, building a fire
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh, burning the bible tonight

Oh oh oh, watching the eagle
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh, watching the eagle fly

Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh

Duration : 0:5:30

Technorati Tags: Flaming, Lips, planets, The, Watching

On planets is a VideoSong, a new medium with 2 rules:
1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

if you have artwork that you’d like to submit to be the album art for one of my future songs, send an email with a 1000×1000 picture file attached to:

JackConteAlbumArt@gmail.com

If I end up using your artwork, I’ll need a link and two sentence blurb about you to put in the “info” section of the metadata for the mp3. Please include that with your email!

This weeks album arts by:

The Way it was Before:
Album art by Sarah Woodward

http://www.rawhealingpatch.com

We Grew Up So Well:
Album art by Josh Emery, 15 yrs. old, http://www.myspace.com/devourthebrain

Kitchen Fork:
Album Art by Robert Martens. See more of his photography at http://www.flickr.com/photos/itendswithtens

Freaks and Clowns, This Disaster, Get Happy, Out of Nowhere, On Planets:
Artwork by cheeckychen

http://www.youtube.com/cheekychen

10,000 ft/sec:
Album Art by Linda van der Plas, from The Netherlands. Linda, if you’re reading this, please send me a link where others can see more of your artwork!

Bloody Nose:
Album Art by Nick Bohl. His email is ahughman@live.com if you want to get in touch.

Duration : 0:5:39

Technorati Tags: and, bass, conte, cymbal, drum, drums, jack, jackcontemusic, motion, on, piano, planets, stop

Duration : 0:1:58

Technorati Tags: 123s, ABCs, animation, back, Be, Comes, Cool, Earth, Giants, grammy, Graphics, Here, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, might, Neptune, Physics, planets, Pluto, Saturn, school, Science, Speed, They, TMBG, to, Uranus, velocity, Venus

Duration : 0:6:35

Technorati Tags: astrology, classical, English, Gustav, Holst, modernist, orchestral, planets, space, Suite, The

Duration : 0:7:43

Technorati Tags: Basin, Caloris, channel, Crater, History, inner, Mercury, planets, The, universe

Duration : 0:3:21

Technorati Tags: Bags, Blowout, Butterfly, Cee, Cherrywine, Comb, Digable, Doodlebug, Jazz, knowledge, Ladybug, Mecca, Nickel, planets, Reachin', Soul

Duration : 0:4:17

Technorati Tags: bill, guy, Model, nye, planets, Scale, Science, solar, space, System, The

Some highlights he presented from Cayce’s readings:

# Someone in antiquity had a telescope, but it was found rather than built by that person’s civilization.
# There is no life like ours in the solar system, but there are other beings/civilizations elsewhere in the universe.
# The stars and planets do not govern our future.
# In a sense, sunspots are caused by the turmoil of the human race.

Cayce, who died in 1945 and often spoke of past lives in his readings, may have reincarnated on another world, Mullaney suggested. Cayce’s entire 14,306 readings are available on a searchable
CD-ROM, which Mullaney said he used in his research.

Duration : 0:10:1

Technorati Tags: advanced, aliens, am, ancient, atlantis, beings, cayce, civilization, coast, cosmos, edgar, ets, flood, Future, george, hace, human, james, life, lives, mullaney, noory, past, planets, pole, prophet, readings, reincarnation, shift, Sleeping, state, sunspots, technology, to, trance, ufo, universe