The Astronomer Who Heard the Planets Sing

In 1619, Johannes Kepler published a book with a remarkable claim: the planets were singing. The German astronomer had spent years charting the orbits of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, calculating their velocities with painstaking precision. What he discovered astonished him. Each planet's changing speed as it traced its elliptical path corresponded to musical intervals — Saturn humming in low, slow tones, Jupiter holding a steady bass, Earth oscillating between the notes mi and fa, what Kepler called the sound of misery and famine, the twin realities of our fallen world.

He titled the work Harmonices Mundi — The Harmony of the World. And he ended it not with a scientific conclusion but a prayer: "I thank Thee, Lord God our Creator, that Thou allowest me to see the beauty in Thy work of creation."

Kepler was no mere poet. He genuinely believed he had uncovered the song creation had been singing since the beginning — a song most people were simply too distracted to hear.

Three thousand years before Kepler bent over his calculations, the psalmist already knew. "Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy before the Lord." Psalm 98 does not ask creation to begin praising God. It recognizes that creation never stopped. The rivers, the mountains, the very planets in their orbits are already singing. The only question is whether we will add our voices to the chorus.