Jupiter Eternal

The inspiration for Jupiter Eternal came from an incident on the planet Jupiter that took place in July 1994. Earlier that year, astronomers Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and David Levy discovered fragments of a comet orbiting Jupiter and calculated that they would impact the planet within a few months. These large fragments of the Shoemaker–Levy comet eventually collided with Jupiter over the course of six days, from July 16 to 22, 1994. It was the first live observation of such an event in human history.

Scientists were unsure what these collisions would produce, or even if they would see anything at all – many thought the massive gas planet might simply absorb the comets with no visible effect. The impacts, however, turned out to be spectacular: telescopes observed giant scars on the planet and immense plumes of debris being launched into space. The event made international headlines at the time. The planet eventually healed itself, and a few weeks later, the impact sites were no longer visible.

The music moves from majestic calm and stasis – representing the beauty and expansiveness of our solar system’s largest planet, a beacon of light floating in space – to more rhythmic and intense bravura passages. The stasis of the opening eventually returns, symbolizing the quasieternal nature of the planet. Jupiter, as it turns out, acts as a protector of the inner solar system by attracting interstellar debris, making these kinds of impacts less frequent for Earth.

– Pierre Jalbert