music of the spheres

American  

noun

1. a music, imperceptible to human ears, formerly supposed to be produced by the movements of the spheres or heavenly bodies.

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music of the spheres British  

noun

1. the celestial music supposed by Pythagoras to be produced by the regular movements of the stars and planets

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Etymology

Origin of music of the spheres

First recorded in 1600–10

Example Sentences

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory created what they call “music of the spheres” for the TOI 178 system by associating a sound on a pentatonic scale to each of the five planets.

From Salon

The fact that each of these planetlike orange circles is itself made up of tiny orange circles makes clear that the music of the spheres is also the music of atoms, and vice versa.

From New York Times

Never before has humanity reached out to so deliberately strike such a lasting chord in the music of the spheres.

From Scientific American

Assessing one of the few commercial recordings of Herschel’s compositions, the Gramophone critic Stanley Sadie wrote that this is “no music of the spheres,” and bemoaned its structural predictability and lurching modulations.

From New York Times

How much you can tolerate all this will depend on your own particular attunement to the music of the spheres.

From New York Times