For generations there was a strongly held belief in the Music of the Spheres. In Hindu beliefs there are states of mind when one can actually hear the music, but in the original Pythagorean concept there was an order to the planets that was mystical. There is an allied belief in Judaism about the states of the angels and the praise given to god by all creation (also very mystical). Kepler took up this idea in some ways by trying to fit all the geometric shapes into the known planetary orbits, though he gave up the idea after years of trying.
Where do ideas like this come from? It is of course taught that they have their origins in the mathematical system of Pythagoras which in part is true, but mathematics is itself a pattern making tool that helps us as arch pattern makers to understated what we do not understand. There are few things you can get to know from a distance and the fact that stars and the Cosmos have become in any way known to us is little short of startling, but it is the way in which we try to see balance, order and patterns that gives us most of our ideas.
Sometimes the patterns do not exist but since they represent order they instill us with some confidence and that is why people have believed untrue things for generations. It is also why when the ideas are proven false so many people do not want to give them up. After all wouldn’t it be better to have singing planets than meteorites that can smash our existence to nothingness? That’s not a pretty, human-friendly pattern.