Johann Strauss II's 'Blue Danube' waltz to be sent into space for his 200th anniversary

To celebrate the 200th birthday of Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, his famous waltz The Blue Danube will be transmitted into space on May 31, 2025.

The piece, performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, will be broadcast as a radio signal by the European Space Agency (ESA) using its deep-space antenna in Spain.

This is the Blue Danube's first space odyssey

The signal will travel at the speed of light (approximately 670 million miles per hour), reaching the Moon in 1.5 seconds, Mars in 4.5 minutes, Jupiter in 37 minutes, and Neptune in four hours.

Within 23 hours, it will have travelled as far as NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, currently over 15 billion miles from Earth.

The transmission also marks ESA’s 50th anniversary. While the live concert will be performed on Earth, the version transmitted into space will be a pre-recorded rehearsal to avoid technical issues. Public livestream screenings will be held in Vienna, Madrid, and New York.

Strauss’ music was not included in the original 1977 Voyager Golden Records, which featured other classical composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.

This event aims to acknowledge Strauss' cultural significance, especially since The Blue Danube is widely recognized and was famously featured in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Previous deep-space musical transmissions include NASA's beaming of the Beatles' Across the Universe in 2008 and Missy Elliott’s The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) in 2024. In 2012, will.i.am’s Reach for the Stars was sent to Mars and played back by the Curiosity rover.

ESA’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, said the initiative is intended to inspire future space scientists and explorers.