Orrery of Kepler’s Exoplanets

Here’s a terrific visualization of all the multiple-planet systems discovered by the Kepler spacecraft as of February 2, 2011. The exoplanets’ orbits go through the entire 3.5 year mission. The different colors represent different sized planets — “hot” colors are the big planets, cooler colors are the smaller ones, relative to the other planets in the system. Kepler’s Orrery is a generative music system that uses gravity equations to compose and play ambient music.