To commemorate the 200th anniversary of Strauss' birth, his famous waltz "Blue Danube" will be transmitted into space this month. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra's performance of the classical piece will be beamed into the cosmos on May 31, in a livestreamed event with free public screenings in Vienna, Madrid, and New York. This celestial send-off also marks the 50th anniversary of the European Space Agency's (ESA) founding.

Although the music could be converted into radio signals in real time, ESA will relay a pre-recorded version from the orchestra's rehearsal the day before to avoid any potential technical issues. The live performance will serve as the accompaniment. These radio signals will travel at the speed of light, approximately 670 million mph (over 1 billion kph). Within 1 ½ seconds, the music will pass the moon, and it will reach Mars in 4 ½ minutes, Jupiter in 37 minutes, and Neptune in four hours. In just 23 hours, the signals will be as far from Earth as NASA's Voyager 1, which is more than 24 billion km away in interstellar space.

In separate news, a second major power outage occurred in southeastern France early Sunday, this time in Nice, due to suspected arson at an electrical facility. The blackout affected approximately 45,000 households in Nice and nearby cities such as Cagnes-sur-Mer and Saint-Laurent-du-Var. This incident follows a similar power outage on Saturday that disrupted the city of Cannes during the closing day of its film festival. Police have not yet established a link between the two incidents.