The Animations Page
Here are links to a number of animations prepared by the maintainer of thiswebsite. They are not intended as rigorous depictions of the past andfuture motions of the objects concerned (although at the scales of thesediagrams, any difference would probably not be noticeable in most cases),rather they are intended to assist in understanding the state of knowledge about thecontents of the solar system ("A picture is worth a thousand words").Unless otherwise stated, the animations are drawn as seen from thenorth ecliptic pole with the vernal equinox off to the right.
The animations are currently available as animated GIFs (in two differentsizes), other formats may be added in the future.
Any use of these animations for anything other than your own personalenjoyment is not permitted withoutour express permission.
The Inner Solar System
This animation shows the motion of objects in the inner region ofthe solar system over a two-year period at 10-day intervals. The sun is theyellow symbol at the center of each frame. The orbits of the planets Mercury,Venus, Earth and Mars are shown in light blue, with the current locations ofeach planet being shown by large crossed circles. Main-belt minor planetsare shown as green circles, Near-Earth asteroids as red circles. Cometsare shown as blue squares (filled for numbered periodic comets, outline forother comets).This animation (prepared 2002 July 31) is available as:
A newer version (prepared 2011 April 17) is available as:
The Middle Solar System
This animation shows the motion of objects in the inner- to mid-region ofthe solar system over a two-year period. The animation shows objects outto the orbit of Jupiter and a little beyond. The meaning of the symbolsis as for the Inner Solar System animation: additionally, Jupiter and itsorbit are now shown and the Jupiter Trojans, which orbit in the sameorbit as Jupiter but roughly 60 degrees ahead or behind the planet, arecolored blue.This animation shows the vast bulk of the objects tracked by the MPC.The total number of objects shown is more than 100000.
This animation (prepared 2002 July 31) is available as:
A newer version (prepared 2011 April 17) is available as:
The Outer Solar System
This animation shows the motions of objects in the outer solar system,beyond the orbit of Jupiter, over a 100-year period at 200-day intervals.The orbits and current locations of the Jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn,Uranus and Neptune) are shown. The current location of Pluto is indicatedby the large white crossed circle. High-eccentricity objects are shownwith cyan triangles, Centaurs as orange triangles, Plutinos as whitecircles, "Classical" TNOs as red circles and Scattered-Disk Objects asmagenta circles.NOTE: The strange behavior exhibited by the comets (a general heading inwardsprior to the mid 1990s and a general heading outwards post 2000) is aconsequence of plotting only those comets currently observable (as of mid2002). Around this date, all of the long-period comets would have been ator near perihelion. Fifty years either side of this date they are all farfrom the sun. If the full cometary catalogue had been plotted, this effectwould not be so noticeable as there would be inbound and outbound cometsvisible on each pre-2002 frame.
This animation (prepared 2002 July 31) is available as:
A newer version (prepared 2011 April 17) is available as:
The Near-Earth Environment 2007-8
This animation hitches a ride on the earth and observes its near-spaceenvironment for a period of one year at daily intervals starting in July 2007.No objectsare displayed that are more than 20 million km from the earth. Objectswithin one-third of this distance are colored red, objects withintwo-thirds are colored orange, other objects are green. Objects below theecliptic plane are shown as outline circles, objects above as filled circles.Objects may appear and disappear in seemingly odd locations, depending on howtheir orbits intersect the sphere enclosing the volume of space within20 million km of the earth.Notable close approaches during the period occur on2007Sept. 5 (2007 RS1),Oct. 12 (2007 TX22),Oct. 17 (2007 UN12),Oct. 18 (2007 UD6),Oct. 30 (2007 US51),Nov. 14 (2007 VF189),Dec. 13 (2007 XB23),Dec. 27 (2007 YP56),2008Jan. 31 (2008 BC15),Feb. 7 (2008 CT1),Mar. 9 (2008 EZ7),Mar. 10 (2008 EM68),Mar. 29 (2008 FP),Apr. 3 (2008 GM2),Apr. 7 (2008 GF1) andMay 10 (2008 JL24).Most of the objects depicted in thisanimation are recent discoveries.The symbol representing Earth is not to scale: at the scale of theseplots, the earth would be about a quarter pixel across on the larger plotand about a tenth of a pixel on the smaller plot.
This animation (prepared 2008 July 1) is available as:
The Near-Earth Environment 2002
This animation hitches a ride on the earth and observes its near-spaceenvironment for a period of one year at daily intervals. No objectsare displayed that are more than 20 million km from the earth. Objectswithin one-third of this distance are colored red, objects withintwo-thirds are colored orange, other objects are green. Objects below theecliptic plane are shown as outline circles, objects above as filled circles.Objects may appear and disappear in seemingly odd locations, depending on howtheir orbits intersect the sphere enclosing the volume of space within20 million km of the earth. Notable close approaches in 2002 occur onJan. 7 (2001 YB5),Feb. 5 (2002 CA26),Feb. 8 (2002 CB26),Mar. 8 (2002 EM7),Mar. 31 (2002 GQ), Apr. 6 (2002 FD6), June 14 (2002 MN)and Aug. 18 (2002 NY40). Most of the objects depicted in thisanimation are recent discoveries. The apparent dearth of objects after thestart of September is caused by the fact that we haven't yet discoveredmost of the objects that will making close approaches in the months ahead:the only objects displayed are those that were discovered in previousyears.The symbol representing Earth is not to scale: at the scale of theseplots, the earth would be about a quarter pixel across on the larger plotand about a tenth of a pixel on the smaller plot.This animation (prepared 2002 July 31) is available as:
