Data beamed back to Earth from Nasa’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has been used to make a piece of music to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its launch.

The three-minute work is based on information captured by a special telescope aboard the craft, which is designed to identify protons, alpha particles, and heavier nuclei in space.

Scientists used 40 years of data, stretching back to 1977, to create a melody that follows the journey of Voyager 1.

Each number, representing an average 26-day measurement received by Nasa’s space physics data facility from the telescope, called a low-energy charged article instrument, is converted into a musical note.

To produce the music, Dr Domenico Vicinanza, of Anglia Ruskin University and Europe’s high-speed data network Geant, and Dr Genevieve Williams, of the University of Exeter, used a process called data sonification.

It involved mapping the recorded measurements and flight characteristics to melody, harmony and orchestration.

Measurements coming from the telescope depict the dramatic changes detected first when Voyager 1 approached Jupiter, then Saturn and finally when it left the solar system in 2012 The music will receive its world premiere in Denver, Colorado, on Monday.