Saturday 7 January 2012

Video asteroid history for the last 30 years

I have been interested in the asteroids in the Solar system lately and, while perusing the vast amount of data that is now on the Internet on the subject, I've stumbled upon a video of the number of asteroids humans have discovered in the last 30 years (1980-2010). It is a simple bird's eye view of the Solar system, with the planets and the small objects we knew at the time to exist, together with a highlighted view of the objects we were seeing from the Earth at any given moment.

You should watch the video full screen and a large resolution, as the objects are pretty dim. If you only see the highlighted object, you should increase your video brightness or gamma settings. Enjoy!



The video is from Scott Manley's YouTube page, and there are more interesting asteroid videos there as well. I urge you to see them. The ones I enjoyed best I will include below.

Density Of Asteroids in the Orbital Plane of the Solar System



Asteroids In Resonance With Jupiter



Asteroid Belt - Edge On View



And as a bonus for watching this far, my own simple simulation of some of the asteroids an comets in the Solar system. You will need a Html5 browser and a reasonably fast computer. The speed is reasonable on my slow computer and insanely fast on my other. Change it to fit your own parameters.
Asteroids in the Solar System

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