But it really was flute music coming from space, even if we here on Earth couldn't hear it. Cady Coleman, a NASA astronaut serving aboard the International Space Station, made good use of some down time by playing her flute, specifically a sea shanty titled "Bluenose," a song written by Stan Rogers, a folk musician from Canada.
The song is about being far from home, and Coleman said it was an apt musical statement to make about herself, orbiting high above Earth with five other astronauts, including Scott Kelly, the brother-in-law of Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who has survived a gunshot wound to the head.
Coleman played the tune on her personal flute. She also brought three other flutes with her on her assignment, and one of them belongs to Ian Anderson, founder of the band Jethro Tull. It wasn't the only time she made use of the woodwind instrument, though. She said it was a nice feeling to play music while floating in zero-gravity and gazing out at the starts — and Earth — although she had to be careful that the air she was breathing into the flute didn't send her spiraling around the station.
Watch the video here.
Coleman wasn't the first astronaut to play music, or even the flute, in space. Ellen Ochoa played her flute onboard the space shuttle back in 1993. More recently, Ed Lu and Carl Walz have played an electronic keyboard aboard the space station.
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