There’s a new way to listen to the music of the spheres, courtesy of the Rubin Observatory and a couple of space-savvy musicians.
An online app known as Skysynth lets you turn the observatory’s imagery of the night sky into a tinkling sequence of musical notes by running a cursor over the picture.
Skysynth made its debut months ago, but the Rubin Observatory team highlighted the app this week in social media clips on Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky and X.
The screen shows a swath of the Rubin Observatory’s view of the Southern Hemisphere sky, as seen from its vantage point in Chile.
As described in the social-media postings, the sonification of the celestial scenery is determined by the data that’s being passed over. Reddish celestial objects generate low-pitched notes, bluish objects produce higher pitches, and the brightness of the objects determines the volume. When your cursor passes over a galaxy, the note is struck on a synthesized harp. Stars are sonified with a glockenspiel.
You can pan and zoom to focus on specific regions of the sky, or you can let your cursor drift across the ocean of stars. The color of the cursor icon changes to reflect the color of the object beneath it.
Skysynth is a production of SYSTEM Sounds, a science-art project founded by Matt Russo, an astrophysicist and musician who teaches physics at the University of Toronto; and Andrew Santaguida, a
Toronto musician and sound engineer.
The Rubin Observatory’s sky survey isn’t the only astronomical data set that’s been sonified. Russo and Santaguida have also turned observations from the Hubble, Chandra and Webb space telescopes into music. You can even hear sonic translations for gravitational waves, black holes, exoplanets, planetary nebulae and Saturn’s rings. Check out SYSTEM Sounds’ website for the full repertoire.
