Other Solar Systems Screensaver
The Other Solar Systems screensaver draws real exoplanet systems to scale — TRAPPIST-1, Kepler-11, TOI-178 and HR 8799 — cycling through them with our own for comparison. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.
How the Other Solar Systems screensaver works
The saver renders with three.js on your GPU. The library is vendored into this site rather than fetched from a CDN, and loads only when a 3D screensaver actually runs.
It reads measured values from the discovery literature, held in the saver because the NASA Exoplanet Archive sends no CORS headers a browser can use.
The scene resizes with the window and releases its WebGL context when the saver stops, so shuffle mode and Multi-view can cycle 3D savers without exhausting the browser's context limit.
If WebGL is unavailable the saver says so on screen rather than showing an empty black box.
A worked example
Each system is scaled so its outermost planet reaches the same radius, which makes the comparison between systems immediate. TRAPPIST-1's seven planets all orbit closer than Mercury does to the Sun — the entire system would fit inside the empty space at the centre of ours. HR 8799 is the opposite extreme: four giants at 16 to 68 AU, imaged directly rather than inferred.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the scene; Speed changes the pace of the motion and the camera.
- Add it to a Multi-view grid, though 3D savers are heavier than 2D ones and a few per screen is plenty.
- Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is the data not live?
- Because the NASA Exoplanet Archive does not send the CORS headers a browser needs, so a page cannot read it directly. Rather than invent plausible numbers, this ships a fixed set of real measured ones and says so.
- Are the planet sizes to scale too?
- No, and only the distances are. Planet radii are compressed logarithmically, because a gas giant is eleven times Earth's radius and drawn honestly would hide everything else in the system.
- Does this need a special browser or plugin?
- No. It uses WebGL, which every current desktop and mobile browser supports. Nothing is installed and no plugin is required.
- Does it cost anything or need an account?
- No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up.