5 ms·

Visualize the orbits of exoplanets

88 points by gkst 10y ago

philipov 10y ago
I am using Chrome. All the planets with orbits longer than 20-60 days are outside the default zoom level. To see them, it's necessary to alt-scrollwheel to zoom out, reducing the UI size to unreadible, find one of the planets at pixel-size, mouse over it to create a tooltip, zoom back in, and then use the scroll bar to scroll back to the tooltip. Maybe it would be better to just make the entire field scrollable without using stupid tricks?
tensafefrogs 10y ago
Here's a different version with source code, not sure if it's the same planets: http://blog.blprnt.com/blog/blprnt/data-in-an-alien-context-kepler-visualization-source-code http://blog.blprnt.com/blog/blprnt/data-in-an-alien-context-...
martgnz 10y ago
Another amazing piece on exoplanets is Jonathan Corum's graphic on The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/space/keplers-tally-of-planets.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/space/keplers-tal...
aswanson 10y ago
Gravity is such a simple but strange aspect of the physical universe.
typpo 10y ago
Really like this. We're discovering new exoplanets so quickly. Wanted to share a similar webgl visualization I made, with colors that indicate the temperature range/habitability of the planet rather than spectral class: http://www.asterank.com/exoplanets http://www.asterank.com/exoplanets Here's the source code: https://github.com/typpo/asterank/blob/master/static/js/3d/kepler3d.js https://github.com/typpo/asterank/blob/master/static/js/3d/k...
- tgb 10y ago
  Very nice one! Not all the planets are orbiting in the same plane. Is that stylistic choice or does it reflect some factor?
  - typpo 10y ago
    It reflects the inclination of the exoplanets' orbits around their parent stars. We can actually measure this based on the light curve of a star as a planet passes in front of it. Here's a quick explanation of how that's done: https://www.paulanthonywilson.com/exoplanets/exoplanet-detection-techniques/the-exoplanet-transit-method/ https://www.paulanthonywilson.com/exoplanets/exoplanet-detec...
    - tgb 10y ago
      Nice article, thanks. So this inclination is a measure of an offset of the plane of the exoplanet's orbit from the line passing through Earth and the star? So the reason most of these planets have very low inclination is A) those are easiest to detect since they block the sun the most, in particular we couldn't detect a planet with 90 degree inclination at all, and B) there's a symmetry involved so there are more ways to have 0 inclination than one might first guess (eg: take the picture in the article are rotated in the screen, it keeps the same angle of inclination). Part (B) is kind of fun, now that I'm thinking about it. It's saying that the average angle between two randomly chosen planes is greater than the average angle between a randomly chosen plane and a randomly chosen vector. To see this, we can fix a plane, the X-Y plane and always rotate the system to use that as the (first) randomly chosen plane. Then there's one plane of 0 degree separation from the XY plane, namely itself, but a whole circle's worth of planes perpendicular to it (any plane with it's normal vector lying on the XY plane). In the opposite manner, we see that there's a single line perpendicular to the XY-plane but a circle's worth of lines of inclination 0. This isn't the most intuitive thing in the world, and I second-guessed myself after I wrote (B) down. (Actually, I guess it's a real projective line's worth, not a circle's worth, of lines of inclination 0 (directions in a plane choose a line but two directions choose the same line so we've doubled counted lines).)
tgb 10y ago
Everyone should hit the "Introduction" button on the left if they haven't. It gives a lot more context to the visualization.
alfonsodev 10y ago
it reminds me to "Make your solar system" Android video game. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.JavierGomezPereda.MakeYourSolarSystem https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.JavierGome... People who likes this post may enjoy MYSS game too.

88 points by gkst 10y ago

I am using Chrome. All the planets with orbits longer than 20-60 days are outside the default zoom level. To see them, it's necessary to alt-scrollwheel to zoom out, reducing the UI size to unreadible, find one of the planets at pixel-size, mouse over it to create a tooltip, zoom back in, and then use the scroll bar to scroll back to the tooltip. Maybe it would be better to just make the entire field scrollable without using stupid tricks?

tensafefrogs 10y ago

Here's a different version with source code, not sure if it's the same planets: http://blog.blprnt.com/blog/blprnt/data-in-an-alien-context-kepler-visualization-source-code http://blog.blprnt.com/blog/blprnt/data-in-an-alien-context-...

martgnz 10y ago

Another amazing piece on exoplanets is Jonathan Corum's graphic on The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/space/keplers-tally-of-planets.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/space/keplers-tal...

aswanson 10y ago

Gravity is such a simple but strange aspect of the physical universe.

typpo 10y ago

Really like this. We're discovering new exoplanets so quickly. Wanted to share a similar webgl visualization I made, with colors that indicate the temperature range/habitability of the planet rather than spectral class: http://www.asterank.com/exoplanets http://www.asterank.com/exoplanets Here's the source code: https://github.com/typpo/asterank/blob/master/static/js/3d/kepler3d.js https://github.com/typpo/asterank/blob/master/static/js/3d/k...

tgb 10y ago
Very nice one! Not all the planets are orbiting in the same plane. Is that stylistic choice or does it reflect some factor?
- typpo 10y ago
  It reflects the inclination of the exoplanets' orbits around their parent stars. We can actually measure this based on the light curve of a star as a planet passes in front of it. Here's a quick explanation of how that's done: https://www.paulanthonywilson.com/exoplanets/exoplanet-detection-techniques/the-exoplanet-transit-method/ https://www.paulanthonywilson.com/exoplanets/exoplanet-detec...
  - tgb 10y ago
    Nice article, thanks. So this inclination is a measure of an offset of the plane of the exoplanet's orbit from the line passing through Earth and the star? So the reason most of these planets have very low inclination is A) those are easiest to detect since they block the sun the most, in particular we couldn't detect a planet with 90 degree inclination at all, and B) there's a symmetry involved so there are more ways to have 0 inclination than one might first guess (eg: take the picture in the article are rotated in the screen, it keeps the same angle of inclination). Part (B) is kind of fun, now that I'm thinking about it. It's saying that the average angle between two randomly chosen planes is greater than the average angle between a randomly chosen plane and a randomly chosen vector. To see this, we can fix a plane, the X-Y plane and always rotate the system to use that as the (first) randomly chosen plane. Then there's one plane of 0 degree separation from the XY plane, namely itself, but a whole circle's worth of planes perpendicular to it (any plane with it's normal vector lying on the XY plane). In the opposite manner, we see that there's a single line perpendicular to the XY-plane but a circle's worth of lines of inclination 0. This isn't the most intuitive thing in the world, and I second-guessed myself after I wrote (B) down. (Actually, I guess it's a real projective line's worth, not a circle's worth, of lines of inclination 0 (directions in a plane choose a line but two directions choose the same line so we've doubled counted lines).)

tgb 10y ago

Everyone should hit the "Introduction" button on the left if they haven't. It gives a lot more context to the visualization.

alfonsodev 10y ago

it reminds me to "Make your solar system" Android video game. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.JavierGomezPereda.MakeYourSolarSystem https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.JavierGome... People who likes this post may enjoy MYSS game too.