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A Snapshot of the Plot of the Inner Solar System

Posted by michael on from the got-rocks? dept.

BawbBitchen writes "The BBC is running an interesting story about a bunch of Astronomers who have produced a snapshot of the Solar System as of 26 July 2002. Here is the full image and here is a 5.1MB animated GIF (each frame is 961 x 961 pixels) of the map. The credits say it was generated on an OpenVMS system using the PGPLOT graphics library and the animation was done on a RISC OS 4.03 system."

30 comments

  1. Too much noise by medcalf · · Score: 1

    The plot is pretty, but not very informative beyond, "Hey, there are a lot of minor planets in the inner Solar System," which I think most people probably realize anyway.

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    -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
    1. Re:Too much noise by Stoutlimb · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "pretty, but not very informative"

      Heck no. Have you noticed that Jupiter's lagrange points are fairly populated. I never knew that before, and I took 3 years of astrophysics at the university level. Just goes to show, you learn something new every day.

      Bork!

    2. Re:Too much noise by medcalf · · Score: 2

      I was under the understanding that all of the LaGrange points for all of the planets and large moons were well populated, but particularly L4 and L5. Fair point, though, that it's not just a pretty picture.

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      -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
  2. impressive by tps12 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    OpenVMS and RISC-OS in the same article. I think we've met the mention of an obscure operating system quota for today. And barely past noon, at that. Good work, everyone.

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    Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
    1. Re:impressive by zmalone · · Score: 0

      Rather odd though, OpenVMS is not that obscure, but RISC-OS is not all that common outside of Britain, and the image is from Harvard. Someone there must like it an awful lot though, I personally wouldn't do work on machines that top out with 200mhz StrongARM chips.

  3. Look out! by sielwolf · · Score: 1

    All those red dots are heading right for our tiny blue dot!

    --
    What is music when you despise all sound?
  4. Never mind the NEOs, check out the asteroid belt! by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Check out all that stuff floating outside Mars orbit!

    It's icy asteroids outside the icing point of the sun- at that distance water is in the form of ice and sublimes only over enormous timescales.

    Water is an okish fuel for rockets- the ISP of steam is about 190 seconds, just under half the thrust of the space shuttle main engines, even if you don't split it into hydrogen and oxygen.

    Basically, if you can reach that, the whole solar system is open to you- so much fuel you wouldn't know which way to go first...

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    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
  5. misleading by capt.Hij · · Score: 4, Informative
    The project is really cool, and the plots are fascinating. However, the plots that are produced are misleading. The role of science and the media is a growing concern, and it was on slashdot earlier today.

    When you look at the plots it looks like the whole space is filled. This is not even close to representing the true picture since the spacial scales are so large, the actual masses are really smaller than pinpoints. The media is putting out misleading pictures without giving any explanation about the scale, and it looks like we are sitting inside a virtual fog bank of asteroids.

    1. Re:misleading by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The project is really cool, and the plots are fascinating. However, the plots that are produced are misleading. The role of science and the media is a growing concern, and it [slashdot.org] was on slashdot earlier today.

      Would you be happier if they put a little sticker on the picture saying "object size is not to scale"?

      They're constrained by the fact that we actually have to be able to _see_ objects on the plot, and be able to pick out the more important objects (like planets) from the hordes of smaller objects sprinkled about the plot.

      Looks like a decent plot to me.

    2. Re:misleading by Hacker'sEdict · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Plus the fact that a 3d enviroment can't fully be projected onto a 2d page.

    3. Re:misleading by p3d0 · · Score: 2
      Plus the fact that a 3d enviroment can't fully be projected onto a 2d page.
      I don't think that matters much. All these bodies are probably near the plane of the ecliptic anyway.
      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    4. Re:misleading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but you are an educated person who knows a thing or two about basic astronomy. To joe sixpack, this plot might raise a few eyebrows. That considered, maybe a disclaimer isn't so unreasonable, hmm?

    5. Re:misleading by Lars+T. · · Score: 2

      What do you think projection means?

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      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  6. Wow by tsa · · Score: 1

    All those little dots... Cool! Look at their beautiful colours!

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    -- Cheers!

  7. Here's another version by portwojc · · Score: 3, Informative

    APOD July 24th

    Gives the usual detailed information.

  8. It's fantastic... by Shade1001 · · Score: 1

    This is really awesome. I'm totally impressed! By the way, this was on Astronomy Picture Of The Day on July 24.

  9. Re:Never mind the NEOs, check out the asteroid bel by eyepeepackets · · Score: 2

    Sorry dude, I have no mod points or I'd give you a good one as you make the one good observation so far in these posts.

    I'm convinced these asteroids (and the ones that come closer) are our key to future development off planet. We should be putting some serious research into these little rocks first, the big rocks (planets) less so.

    Just my opinion, of course.

    --
    Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
  10. 3D by stereo_Barryo · · Score: 1

    Beyond the problem of the crowded look, it would have been great if we could have tilted the view and seen it from different angles. Since the orbits are not exactly in the plane of the ecliptic, it would have been interesting to see how they "really" are. Also, it would have cut down on the density by pulling some out of the way of the view of others. And then, if it could have been done in stereo...

  11. Asteroid Belt... by Big+Sean+O · · Score: 1

    I had no idea the Asteroid Belt was Green. How fashionable.

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    My father is a blogger.
    1. Re:Asteroid Belt... by gaudior · · Score: 2

      Green is the New Black.

  12. Anthropically misleading? by PenguinOpus · · Score: 1

    Very nice pictures but I notice that many of the non-planetary bodies between Earth and Mars seem to be clustered around earth. This reminds of the story: A drunk crawling around under the streetlight...When the policeman asked the drunk what he was doing, the drunk answered, "I'm looking for my wallet." The policeman helped him look for the wallet awhile, then finally asked, "Are you sure you dropped it here?" The drunk answered, "No, I dropped it up the street, but the light's better here."

    1. Re:Anthropically misleading? by Stoutlimb · · Score: 2

      Actually I think it's because they're clustered around some of Earth's Lagrange points. Just look at the ones around Jupiter to see how significant this is.

  13. It can't? by SIGFPE · · Score: 2

    Oh my God! I'm wasting my life writing rendering code then.

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    -- SIGFPE
  14. Look out! The sky is falling! by Futaba-chan · · Score: 1

    Why does the animated GIF show two asteroids slamming into the Earth (!) if you play it long enough?

  15. map? by SmacKing · · Score: 1

    I'm still waiting on my 1:1 scale map of the solar system....

  16. jumpy by Shooter6947 · · Score: 1

    Crappy temporal resolution -- 10 days/frame. I can't follow individual particles, they just jump around. I'd love to see this plot with 1 day resolution instead, I think that it would give a better impression of what's going on: comets in crazy eccentric orbits, Near Earth Asteroids crossing 1AU, planets circular.

  17. Sigh, a 2D universe? by Sembiance · · Score: 1

    Last I checked the solar system is 3D.
    If they can track, plot and draw a 2D image of the solar system, that seems to me that they have the data on these objects to plot them in 3D.

    Why didn't they create a 3D representation?

  18. Comet cycles? by 3Bees · · Score: 1

    On the Outer Solar System Graph it appears that the comets move in some sort of cyclic pattern (meaning that they seem to converge and then disperse in tune). Is this accurate? Are there any good links to explain theories about this?

    Gosh I'm woefully ignorant about our neighborhood!

    --
    "I think we should tax people who stand in water! " - Mr. Gumby
  19. Plot of the inner solar system by Graspee_Leemoor · · Score: 2

    "Plot of the inner solar system" ?

    I always knew Venus was up to no good, but little did I realise that Mars, Earth, Mercury were in on it. Just what sinister plot does the inner solar system have ?

    or:

    "Plot of the inner solar system"

    Those who criticize the plot of the inner solar system should realize that the plot itself takes a backseat to the special effects.

    graspee