����vlog����

April 9, 2018

was in love with two things in high school: guitar and physics. So when he studied jazz guitar as an undergrad at the University of Toronto, he took physics courses on the side. When he pursued his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in astrophysics at the same university after finishing his music degree, he moonlighted with his indie pop band.

While it was always “tough and stressful” to pick one or the other, thanks to the discovery of a new planetary system last year, that’s a decision the ����vlog���� professor no longer has to make.

Working with a fellow astrophysicist at the University of Toronto, it took Russo just a couple of hours to do the math and translate the TRAPPIST-1 data into musical notes. The process involved accelerating the actual speed of the planets by millions or billions of times until it’s fast enough for the human ear to hear.

The result was “a beautiful, inspiring chord in a major key,” Russo said.

From there, they brought in one of Russo’s longtime bandmates and created a of the system’s orbital dynamics. Their work quickly garnered international attention and was featured in , , , and .

Following the success of TRAPPIST-1, Russo founded to create more music based on cosmic activity. Earlier this year, his sound-based planetarium show, Our Musical Universe, took people on an audio and visual tour of the cosmos at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, where he is a planetarium operator.

“It gave me the power to communicate astronomy through music and to reach individuals who are blind or visually impaired,” he said. “It was a chance for them to experience the cosmos. They loved it.”

As much as possible, Russo said he regularly features the sounds of space in his class at ����vlog���� as a way to connect astronomy to something his students are familiar with. He has also been working with Maia Nenkova, an astronomy professor at ����vlog����, on developing a new course called Music of the Spheres, featuring the rhythm and harmony of the cosmos. The course, to be the first of its kind, will allow students to create their own music using astronomical data.

“I love teaching, whether it’s teaching musical patterns using astronomy or vice-versa,” Russo said. “����vlog���� has allowed me to pursue this interest and focus on what’s interesting to the students. I might be teaching them how to convert the night sky into music while teaching them about the colours of the stars — red, yellow or blue.”

Looking back, Russo said he’s thankful to have fallen in love with both guitar and physics.

“I knew I wouldn’t be the best PhD student, but I couldn’t let the music go. That was the sacrifice I had to make,” he said. “I got lucky when they discovered the TRAPPIST-1 system at the right time. It all worked out in the end.”