Wanderer is a generative artwork that portrays the spectroscopy data from ten distant planets, as collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) during observations of these exoplanets transiting their host stars. The title references the Greek root of the word planet “planētēs”, meaning “wanderer”, a name given to the strange stars that moved across the sky.
Spectroscopy is a technique in astrophysics that analyzes how matter interacts with light. As an exoplanet passes in front of its star, part of the starlight filters through its atmosphere, where specific wavelengths are absorbed by molecules such as water, methane, and carbon dioxide. The resulting spectral fingerprint is a coded pattern of light in which the spectrum’s absent bands reveal the composition and chemistry of the planet. When certain elements are confirmed present, scientists mark the planet as having the potential for life – narrowing our vast search for living organisms outside our galaxy.
In Wanderer, this spectral information from beyond the visible spectrum is translated into vibrant expressions of color and motion. Each artwork’s color palette is derived from a mathematical shift in spectral value, relative to the actual JWST Spectroscopy data – and the scale / density of the shapes of each form are informed by the scientific intensity of light captured during observation. The temporal rhythms of the works are driven by the planet’s orbital data collected over the duration of the planet’s rotation, while the specific movement in each work represents the inherent variability in a planet’s atmosphere at any given time.
With this fusion of precise data and the randomness that comes from generative art's systematic processes, Wanderer embraces the seemingly chaotic nature of the cosmos, while using the scientific evidence we’ve collected to move toward recognition. The exoplanet’s spectral fingerprint provided by Webb, appears in the foreground. The algorithm then does a comparative analysis of the generated data vs the data collected from Webb and brushes the color of the matching spectra onto the background. Should the accepted criteria ever be generated the algorithm will stop.
The work thus behaves like a digital astronomer, seeking order within entropy. Each visual composition echoes the way scientists look for biosignatures, spectral traces of potential life, across light-years of emptiness. The series invites viewers to see in the drifting of distant worlds a mirror for our own cosmic longing, the hope that, somewhere in the light of other worlds, we might recognize ourselves.
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Generative Art
Made with Javascript/p5.js
Ashley Zelinskie & Jeres
2025
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An ultra-hot Jupiter orbiting its star in just 1.3 days, its atmosphere glows with spectral signatures of silicon oxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and water vapor. The planet’s heat and elemental abundance are represented by a storm of color stretched to incandescence.
Locked in a half-day orbit, this gas giant endures winds shearing its atmosphere into ribbons of light. Webb spectroscopy revealed aluminum oxide and water vapor and mapped a striking contrast between clear and clouded day and night skies.
The first exoplanet dissected by the James Webb Space Telescope, revealing sulfur dioxide formed by photochemical reactions in its atmosphere. A substantial amount of water, carbon dioxide, and sulfur compounds intertwine here.
A rocky super-Earth only 82 light-years away, with a carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere and an orbit lasting just over a day.
A Neptune-like world with a hydrogen-helium envelope and high-altitude clouds that scatter incoming light into soft gradients. Webb spectra revealed strong water absorption features partially veiled by haze, a planet seen through diffusion.
James Webb Space Telescope data detected significant amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water, with concentrations consistent with a high-metallicity atmosphere, and high-altitude clouds or haze, which explains its flat transmission spectrum.
A small Neptune-class planet rich in heavy elements, with lightning storms flickering beneath a magnetized sky. Webb detections of water vapor and a strong magnetosphere hint at an atmosphere alive with charge and motion.
One of the least dense exoplanets known, a gas giant described by scientists as “puffy”. Dominated by hydrogen and helium, its spectral lines drift softly, expanding into airy transparencies.
An ice giant with silicate clouds and helium-rich winds. Webb telescope observations found significantly lower levels of methane than expected, suggesting a much hotter interior that breaks down methane.
A warm gas giant nearly a thousand light-years away, its spectrum whispers only of water vapor, faint, but unmistakable. The simplicity of its signal becomes its beauty.
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This piece is created in coordination with scientists and engineers at NASA Goddard and Space Telescope Science Institute.
Dr Sarah Kendrew is an Astronomer and Instrument Scientist with the European Space Agency. She leads the science support team for the MIRI instrument on JWST at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD
Dr Christopher Evans - head of the European Space Agency (ESA) office at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Dr. Chris Evans oversees all ESA personnel who support the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope
Dr Achrene Dyrek and Dr Måns Holmberg - postdoctoral researchers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, studying the properties of exoplanet atmospheres with JWST
Presented by Heft, and TORCH Galler
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