Other Worlds / Exoplanet Portrait

A Dataset Portrait prototype using NASA’s Exoplanet Archive rather than the earthquake dataset. Each planet is a selectable radial mark with remappable spoke length, mark size, color, and clockwise ordering. No Three.js or API key.

Try It

1. Import graphs/html/exoplanet-portrait.subfork.json and run it.
2. Bind HTML Preview to view.html if the recommended layout is not applied.
3. Maximize the preview, remap the channels, change the palette, and select a mark or planet-index button to inspect the measurements. Marks support focus, Enter, and Space. The index remains usable when marks overlap.

No additional rebuild is needed if the current runtime already supports the html_safe JSON Stringify parameter used by the other prototypes. The graph JSON is the single source of truth: edit the formatted template in the node editor and export the graph to update the repository. No source folder or builder is required to use it. There are no browser-side network requests or external fonts.

Source And Selection

Data comes from the NASA Exoplanet Archive’s HTTP TAP service, using the ps Planetary Systems table. The query selects default parameter sets with default_flag=1, excludes contested entries with pl_controv_flag=0, and requires reported distance greater than zero and less than 20 parsecs.

The graph sorts the returned records by distance and limits them to 96 before normalization. It does not rely on the archive’s TOP ordering behavior. This is a bounded nearby sample, not a representative population or complete census. The HTTP request has a 45-second timeout and 2 MB response limit; exceeding it fails rather than silently truncating the JSON. Run again to refresh.

The default PS parameter set is used instead of combining parameter estimates from different references in the PSCompPars table. Missing fields remain missing. See NASA’s table and field definitions.

NASA Exoplanet Archive is operated by Caltech/IPAC for NASA. No NASA endorsement of this visualization is implied. The graph preserves the query and source in its dataset output. If present, the HTTP response Date is displayed as such; it is not labeled as the measurement date or archive-wide last-update time.

Reading The Portrait

• Spoke length defaults to orbital period in days; alternatives are radius or distance.
• Mark radius defaults to planetary radius in Earth radii; alternatives are period or distance.
• Length and mark radius use log(1 + value) scaling over the selected sample, not physical scale or an area-proportional encoding. Equal values use the midpoint.
• Color defaults to estimated equilibrium temperature in kelvin, with three equal-width bins. Alternatives are discovery year or discovery method.
• Missing and limit-only size values are hollow fixed-size marks. Missing and limit-only lengths use dashed short spokes. Missing color values are gray.
• The data retains NASA’s radius, period and temperature limit flags. Only measurements with flag zero and positive finite values are used in those mappings.
• Discovery-method colors cycle through the palette and are listed explicitly.
• Order starts at the top and proceeds clockwise. Unknown sort values come last.

The portrait is not an orbital simulation or sky map. Color is not observed planet color. Equilibrium temperature is not surface temperature or evidence of habitability. Measurement uncertainties are not plotted; use the archive for scientific analysis. Data labels are inserted as text, not HTML.

Reusable Outputs

Outputs: html, HTML response, normalized rows, dataset, JSON data_response. The exoplanet-portrait/1 dataset includes source, selection query, units, response headers, and rows with name, host, method, discovery year, radius, orbital period, equilibrium temperature, distance, and measurement-limit flags. The renderer consumes this normalized envelope rather than raw NASA column names.

UI mappings do not change graph data outputs or submit another execution. Hosting, stable sharing URLs, and query-input mapping remain separate planned features.

Verification

On September 14, the distance-bounded live query returned 291 records. An offline graph execution using that fetched response sorted/limited them to 96, starting with Proxima Cen b, and produced the dataset and HTML response. DOM-stub checks covered all mappings/sorts/palettes, selection, empty/missing/limit-only data, and unsafe label text. These are not browser visual tests or an ongoing availability guarantee. No dedicated prototype tests were added to the runtime suite.