Published on May 18, 2017
NASA’s Kepler space telescope watches a star, Kepler-11. The star appears to blink in a pattern. It dims like clockwork as six “hands” of differing size orbit around it at different rates. Kepler-11 dims when its six orbiting planets cross between it and the Kepler spacecraft. Calculations show the planets are nested in circular orbits that lie in almost the same plane. Animation credit: NASA/Tim Pyle
