The music on this web site was created by Vangelis, as art of a longer composition that he calls "Mythodea: Music for NASA's Mars Odyssey Mission."

Mars Odyssey team members wanted to know more, so we asked Vangelis a few questions about his personal connection to Mars and music.

Have you always been inspired by space, as you are by music?

Mythology, science, space exploration, these are subjects that have fascinated me since my early childhood. And they were always connected somehow with the music I write.

I understand the world through music and I believe that music shapes the universe. Mankind has always had a sense of wonder about space, has always been curious. It's something that's implanted in us. It's natural to want to travel and discover. It is, always has been, and is always going to be like this. We are space.

What fascinates you most about Mars exploration?

The stars and the planets have interested people for millennia, and Mars in particular. It doesn't matter what each one of us believes about it -- Mars has always held for mankind a sense of mystery, legend and intrigue. And man's persistence to reach, to explore Mars, to find the much anticipated traces of life there, despite the many difficulties and set-backs incurred in trying, this persistence is amazing.

What connections do you draw between your music, the Mars Odyssey mission, and Odyssey -- the great, epic tale written by Homer?

In Homer's Odyssey, Ulysses is trying to go back to his homeland. And he goes through different adventures and difficult times for years and years. So Odyssey seems a good name for NASA's Mars Mission, because it has been and is still an extremely difficult adventure.

You call your music for the Mars Odyssey mission: "Mythodea." Where does that name come from?

I made up the name Mythodea from the words myth and ode. And I felt in it a kind of shared or common path with NASA's current exploration of the planet. Whatever we use as a key; music, mythology, science, mathematics, astronomy,we are all working to decode the mystery of creation, searching for ourdeepest roots.

And whatever we find on Mars, the doors will be open to the next Odyssey, to something so many have instinctually felt for so long, something which through music I remember -- that at the dawn of creation the seeds of life were likely scattered far and wide across the endless skies, and that science will continue to show us how we are connected, no different than the universe itself.