Description

The Union of Concerned Scientists maintains a database that tracks every satellite in earth’s orbit. As of December 31, 2015 there were 1,304 objects being tracked. The data art in this piece represents these satellites. When layered on top of each other, the seven individual satellite clusters at the bottom of the canvas, grouped by launch years, create the primary visualization you see in the center. Each satellite was painstakingly and meticulously hand placed by data artist Brandon Muth, without the assistance of any automated visualization software.