Kepler orrery

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Example of a Kepler star system

The Kepler Orrery is a group of animations created by Daniel Fabrycky and Ethan Kruse, which show exoplanets and stars discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope. 1,815 exoplanets and 726 planetary systems are in the animation.[1]

The sizes of the planet orbits are to scale with each other, including the orbits of the planets in the local solar system out to Uranus. Current exoplanet discovery techniques are more likely to yield planets in tighter orbits around their stars. The sizes of the planets are at correct relative but not to absolute scale. The colors of the planets denote their estimated temperatures.[2][1] All planetary systems seen in the animations have more than one transiting object, and the latest version was created by astronomy graduate student Ethan Kruse. In the description of the video Kruse said the size of the orbits are all to scale, but the size of the planets are not. The orbits are all synchronized such that Kepler observed a planet transit every time it hits an angle of 0 degrees (the 3 o’clock position on a clock).[3]

3rd Orrery Animation (Daniel Fabrycky)[edit]

The third and latest installment of the mesmerizing Kepler Orrery videos by Daniel Fabrycky from the Kepler science team. It shows the relative sizes of the orbits and planets in the multi-transiting planetary systems discovered by Kepler up to November 2013 (according to the Kepler site, 3,538 candidates so far.) According to Daniel "the colors simply go by order from the star (the most colorful is the 7-planet system KOI-351).[4]

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References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Kepler Orrery III". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2024-03-26.
  2. ^ "A Kepler Orrery". The Planetary Society. Retrieved 2024-03-26.
  3. ^ Atkinson, Nancy (2015-12-01). "Spinning Worlds: Orrery of Kepler's Exoplanets, Part IV". Universe Today. Retrieved 2024-03-26.
  4. ^ Major, Jason; Today, Universe. "The latest Kepler Orrery video". phys.org. Retrieved 2024-03-26.