Ashley Zelinskie & Jeres

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.