Jan 30, 2014
This was my submission to MIT's "Art of Astrophysics" competition this year. It was generated with Processing.
It takes 1000 years of data calculated to show what the radial velocity of an alien would measure if they were looking for exoplanets around our own sun.
Lighter areas on the edges show radial velocities slowing down as they reverse direction.
More information on the measurement technique here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_velocity
Many thanks to the MIT Astrophysics department for providing me with the calculations and data to create this, specifically Kevin Schlaufman and Zach Berta-Thompson.