Skyscript Astrology Forum

Some years ago I found recordings of 'sounds' of planets. These are not 'real' sounds as usual, but recordings of radio waves recorded by sattellites. Furthermore the recordings were speeded up extremely so that a couple of days of registration of the waves would give just a couple of seconds. Then these waves are translated to audible sound. As a comparison one could think of the visible spectrum red to violet with red translated to the lowest tone and violet to the highest. As here in the university library the speakers are shut off, I can't check if I have the correct recordings for sure but I think they are.

Jupiter sounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fqE01YYWs

Sounds of Saturn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFFGdTI9 ... re=related

Interestingly the sound of Jupiter is much more pleasant to listen at than Saturn's. Jupiter's sound is expanding and fills the whole room while Saturn has a rather shrieky sound. Perhaps I'm astrologically biased and these could be mere personal interpretations, so it might be an interesting experiment to let a friend hear these two sounds and ask which one they experience as more pleasant. This could give an explanation to the concept of benefic vs. malefic planets. An explanation I would find more satisfying than through analogical interpretation alone.

There are more sounds on youtube, like Uranus, Neptune, Sun and other non planetary objects and also a couple on NASA's site. Just look around, click on several things and have fun.

Can that be the sound of Saturn?! I don't think I like the sound of Jupiter to be perfectly honest (it is somewhat scary!) but the sound of Saturn is a bit annoying and...well, I'll say this now and never again- feminish!
But, while listening to the sound of Jupiter, i couldn't help but notice how much it resembles some of the most common themes in horror films; ghost stories, the unknown, twilight zone...which all makes sense in a way as it could be easily linked to the symbolics of the 9th and thus, it natural Significator, Jupiter, too. Strange.

Having said that...

Perhaps I'm astrologically biased and these could be mere personal interpretations

...well, isn't that the whole point of the Virtue- to finds the symbolic meaning of the planets in accordance with their own nature?!
I actually think that these tracks are very good and that astrology teachers should use them in their classes as astrology students often tend to forget that the planets that they examine from the astrological perspective on daily basis do exist and that it is their real nature that dictates their astrological symbolics.
About two years ago I had a conversation with a young astrology student and she said:" Not only am I sure that I will never be comfortable with the astrological synthesis but I also don't think I will ever learn if Mars is wet or dry!"
I asked: "Well, does it look like a wet planet? What does it remind you of?"
She said: "Well, fire, I guess...cuz it's red! Oh, I see, I never approached it that way! wow, it's easy! "

But, unlike you, I just might be realistically biased as I would expect the sounds of the Sun and Earth to be the way they are. The sound of the Sun is so authoritative- it really is the sound of a planet that could cut off the life on the Earth if it would only decide to stop pulsating for a moment. As for the Earth- it sounds very much like rush hour!


Thanks for the links, very interesting!
(and, by the way, there is a very "funny" track caled the sound of Neptune- a funky version of its sounds, i really loved it!)

I tried the Jupiter link first - it's quite long so I had it playing in the background whilst I hunted for something on google. I thought it was really pleasant, and wasn't sure if someone had made it into music, or set it against chanted hymns. My dog is sleeping on the chair next to me and after a while she lifted her head and kept moving her ears to find the music, as she sometimes does when she hears howls or animal noises on the TV. That was quite comical to watch.

After that I tried the Saturn piece and hated it from the start. The dog left the room after about a minute, and not long after that I turned it off because it was giving me a headache.

I'm slightly suspicious that these have been manufactured, but if those are the genuine sounds they are amazing.

Interesting to hear that you found the Jupiter sound a bit as ghosty, Aglaya.
Here's a Sun sound, recorded in similar ways, I think this was the one I heard a few weeks ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfufSixZ3fs It sounds more regular (in rhythmical sense). And the Earth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHXMLD ... re=related
(perhaps I should get a headphone to be able to listen these in the libraries over here and check if these ones were indeed the ones I meant, but I think I recognized the images.).

So your dog preferred Jupiter, Deb. It's good to check this with animals (of course turning it off or make it able for them to get out of the room when they feel noticeable discomfort) because they can't know the symbols of the planets and thus not be biased by foreknowledge. Dogs are very sensitive to sounds. Cats too but I believe they are less disturbed by unpleasant or dissonant sounds. I don't expect that NASA (from whom these recordings are) would manufacture or mess with the sounds. They would have no commercial interest etc.

For me there was an undertone similar to mid-Eastern music in the Jupiter sounds; didn't find Saturn disturbing, sounded like old UFO B-movies to me.

Found one on Uranus that sounded at times like someone whistling in the dark and other times like speeding trains or planes; thought Neptune was the most disturbing, sounded like water and drowning lost souls. The Sun sound was quite boring, a steady static.

Many thanks for the links Eddy, didn't know NASA had done these.

Perhaps the somewhat boring sound of the Sun makes it a more stable factor. Since the Sun is the immediate central factor of biological life on Earth, a too changeable Sun maybe could affect life on earth too strongly and variably or even make life impossible.

With again the notion in mind that these sounds were speeded up many thousands times this makes that the changes in 'real time' are much slower. Suppose that these changes would be caused by changing aspects as seen from these planets themselves, this could slightly and temporarily alter the main character of these planets. For example a change in the 'constitution' of Jupiter (and perhaps to be noticed in the radiowave recordings) could be due to a Mars-Saturn square as seen from Jupiter or a Venus conjunct Sun. From Earth these positions wouldn't be seen as the angles would be different but it could give an extra characteristic to the planets than by geocentric aspects alone.

In a natal chart this 'planetocentric' dimension could give an extra explanation why Mars wouldn't be so bad or Jupiter not so good in a certain chart. Although this is a thing I considered almost 10 years ago, I never took the effort to calculate these 'planetocentric' positions for my own natal chart (apart from the heliocentric positions). It will be quite a job requiring a lot of calculations, but perhaps I should do this one day.

Eddy wrote:Perhaps the somewhat boring sound of the Sun makes it a more stable factor. Since the Sun is the immediate central factor of biological life on Earth, a too changeable Sun maybe could affect life on earth too strongly and variably or even make life impossible.

I actually find the sound of the Sun to be very energetic- to me it sounds like THE boss!

If we now have the sounds of all the planets, it would be wonderful if some of our more experimentally oriented members would undertake the following:

+Every sound (eg musical note) has a frequency, which can be converted into a wave length and then contrasted to the wave lengths of the color spectrum; this has been applied to musical notes and the corresponding colors have been ascertained. It would solve the many-centuries-old conflict involving color affinities if the sounds of each planet were converted into frequencies and then contrasted to color spectrum wave lengths: we would then have an objectively-based answer to the question of planetary color affinity.

+Every sound produces certain patterns when applied to a vibratory sand tray; it would be interesting-possibly even enlightening-to see what patterns each of the planets created in the vibratory sand tray.

Will anyone undertake the above investigations using the sounds of the planets? I hope so!!

What do you think of Hans Cousto?
http://www.planetware.de/octave/index.html

dr. farr wrote:+Every sound (eg musical note) has a frequency, which can be converted into a wave length and then contrasted to the wave lengths of the color spectrum; this has been applied to musical notes and the corresponding colors have been ascertained. It would solve the many-centuries-old conflict involving color affinities if the sounds of each planet were converted into frequencies and then contrasted to color spectrum wave lengths: we would then have an objectively-based answer to the question of planetary color affinity.

In case of the recordings mentioned, to compare these it should be sure that the speeding up of the radiowaves would be similar otherwise they can't be compared. I couldn't find such recordings of the other planets Mercury, Venus and Mars nor of the Moon, perhaps the gaseous planets produce such strong sounds because they also are a source of radiowaves, while the other planets only reflect the Sun's rays.

dr. farr wrote:+Every sound produces certain patterns when applied to a vibratory sand tray; it would be interesting-possibly even enlightening-to see what patterns each of the planets created in the vibratory sand tray.

Thanks for mentioning this Dr. Farr. I remembered having seen such things on youtube. If you look on youtube for 'cymatics' then you find these sand patterns and also water patterns. With the computers here I can't here the sounds but the images are impressive.

Richard Vetter wrote:What do you think of Hans Cousto?
http://www.planetware.de/octave/index.html

Looks interesting. I don't understand though where he got the frequencies from. I somewhat see how he relates the orbital periods between the planets.

Note that Johannes Kepler tried similar things. He applied his newly developed theory on the elliptic shape of the orbits to compare the distance ratio of perihelion:aphelion with those of intervals in music.

Kepler noted, moreover, that because of the eccentricities of the orbits, there were variations in the derived orbits, and, consequently, he presumed from the ratios given in the first section of this chart (which has been separated into three parts for clarity of presentation, the note being held until the last part), that certain concordances were present between the extremes of the apparent movements of the single planets. By this means he arrived at the third section of his calculations, the harmonies between the movements of each planet itself- that is, the harmony within the movement of each planet between its aphelion and perihelion extremes of distance from the sun":

Saturn 1' 48'' : 2' 15'' = 4 : 5, a major-third;
Jupiter 4' 35'' : 5' 30'' = 5 : 6, a minor-third;
Mars 25' 21'' : 38' 1'' = 2 : 3, a fifth;
Earth 57' 28'' : 61' 18'' = 15 : 16, a semi-tone;
Venus 94' 50'' : 98' 47'' = 24 : 25, a diesis;
Mercury 164' 0'' : 394'' 0'' = 5 : 12, an octave and minor-third.

(Note: Typo, 394 possibly should be 384 in above table).

source: http://www.greatdreams.com/grace/50/68kepmusphere.html

Hans Cousto mentions tuning forks. Tuning forks can also be used to explain resonance. A tuning fork when hit will make another tuning fork of the same frequency resonate through the soundwaves that reach them. Here's a video that clarifies it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiHOqMOJTH4 Perhaps the planets might do the same with us people. In the video you will see that the tuning forks are placed on wooden boxes. This amplifies the sounds of the tuning forks. If planets would do the same then the Earth could be seen as a huge amplifier receiving the waves of the planets and indirectly passing them on to the people and other life on her surface.

Although all this sounds very modern and materialistic, it seems that this was done for ages. The modern means which now are at our disposal might lead to different insights but the search for the meaning is similar. Yet some astrologers strongly dislike this allegedly 'physicalist' view, I remember once being assaulted in a certain sense for these views. Like Kepler I like to connect aspects with geometry and sound. Ptolemy also did connect the aspecting signs with musical intervals, see Tetrabiblos I.13 http://www.reocities.com/astrologysourc ... htm#side13

It's a very strange mix where art and physics meet. We like music because of the harmonious sounds. Music can change our feelings making us joyful or melancholic. Such harmonious sounds however are based upon mathematical ratios; our ears 'like' these or prefer these above other sounds which will be experienced as 'false' tunes. As far as I know there's no explanation for this preference but as it can be measured it links the emotional to the rational.

Scientists are still trying to work out what all the recorded noises mean.

You can listen to the Kepler material on planetary tones from his Harmonices Mundi on a CD which is still available. Willie Ruff and John Rodgers got it together in the 70s I think. The liner notes for the album are here:

http://www.willieruff.com/kepler.html

If you go here: http://www.willieruff.com/catalog.html

and scroll down the page to the entry for The Harmony of the World - A Realization for the Ear of Johannes Kepler's Data from Harmonices Mundi 1619, you can actually download the sounds from Mercury outwards as an mp3 file. The liner notes explain what is going on.

If anyone is interested in this from an esoteric point of view, I would whole-heartedly recommend Joscelyn Godwin's book Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: the spiritual dimension of music from antiquity to the avant-garde. It covers the territory in great detail - planetary scales of various kinds, planets and modes (mixolydian, etc.), aspects and musical interval correlations (trine - perfect fifth, etc.), tone zodiacs. The Greeks, through the Renaissance up till the late 20th century are covered. The book seems to still be in print and can be got from Amazon.