The TRAPPIST-1 orrery is the first high accuracy exoplanet orrery for another star in our galaxy. The orrery is able to illustrate the spacing of planet orbits because the system doesn’t have large gaps between orbits like the gap between Mars and Jupiter.
In May 2016 astronomers published evidence of seven planets orbiting a star using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescopes (TRAPPIST) in Chile and Morocco. News of this travelled quickly, and soon the star became known as TRAPPIST-1.
TRAPPIST-1 is an ultracool red M-dwarf star located within the constellation Aquarius, about five degrees south of the celestial equator. It is too small to observe directly with an apparent magnitude of 18.8, so a significant telescope would need a fairly long exposure to capture any trace of it.
The TRAPPIST-1 system is quite small - it would fit within the orbit of our planet Mercury.
TRAPPIST-1 acheived lots of press attention after it was observed to have planets in the so-called "habitable zone" - loosely defined as a zone around a star that could support planets with organic molecular activity.
One turn of the Trappist-1 orrery input crank represents twelve hours of Earth time. The pointer on the time dial turns once for every two turns of the input. The inner planet (b) has the shortest orbit time, about one- and one-half days, or three turns of the crank. The outermost planet requires about thirty-seven and a half turns. The rotation periods are represented to an accuracy of a few parts in 10,000.
Armstrong Metalcrafts is building a limited number of these for sale. The price is $995. To inquire about a purchase, please use our contact form or send an email to "sales" at armstrongmetalcrafts.com.