The Planets Today

Don't miss the button in the lower right to switch between desktop and mobile view, I almost did.

"If you have our desktop version enabled on your computer, then the application shown above plots the position of the Earth and planets using data from this NASA's JPL website and is accurate between 3000 BCE and 3000 CE. If you have our mobile version enabled then we'll be showing you a simpler view of the solar system showing you the current planetary positions with the option of moving up to 30 days forwards or backwards."

I like this. It really helps illustrate that how long it takes to get to Mars can vary hugely depending on when you leave Earth.

My kids learned in school (during the 5 minutes of the year they spent talking about the solar system) that Venus is closer to Earth than Mars, but I had to use a diagram like this to explain that that's only sometimes true

kind of limiting that you can only go back and forward in time one month though. I would love a slider, a play button

Though it doesn't show today, this 3D model of the solar system is great

https://codepen.io/juliangarnier/pen/krNqZO

Tangentally, I came across this preprint today about sensible definitions for planets, as IAU doesn't actually call exoplanets "planets", and there's some unclarity re hydrostatic equilibrium ("how round") and especially the "clearing the path" / orbital dominance

Quantitative Criteria for Defining Planets (UCLA) https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.07590

I had to do a double take on this minor detail —

The current date is expressed as:

     12:07:2024 AD

I don’t think I’ve ever seen colons used as a date part separator, only as a time part separator (and they tend toward ambiguity even there).

And “AD” is generally superseded by “CE” now, isn’t it?

(I ruin everything by caring about the wrong details! It’s a great game. Try it! You’ll hate it.)

The orbits look perfectly circular. Is this a simplification, or are the elipses so mild that they look like circles at that scale?

An honorable mention: https://celestiaproject.space

This but in 3D and adjustable for any date. Plus lots of fun stuff like popular culture sci fi spacecraft.

I’ve seen so many times this 2D representation of the solar system and I felt somehow shocked when I saw a Youtube video supposedly showing how the planets actually orbit around the sun, and how the sun orbits the center of our galaxy. Basically, the sun is moving and the planets orbiting around it form some sort of vortex. If you look at the whole thing as if you were in front of the vortex (or behind), you would see the 2D representation.

I don’t know either if that’s what happens in reality but this 2D representation is getting old I guess.

The website design reminds me of my initial forays into website creation in the early 2000s using Dreamweaver.

Sol and Luna. Nice to see sensible names for these.

An indicator of which way the planets are moving and more importantly spinning would be nice.

I have bookmarked it so I can see about where the planets are. Thank you.

Its a great site. Really enjoyed playing with that.

Now back to work.. :(

wow now i understand the mandala representation in hindu cosmoology, the movements of the planets and the whole cosmos in lines of their paths

Moon not Luna