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NASA's Eyes Visualization (also known as simply NASA's Eyes) is a freely available suite of computer visualization applications created by the Visualization Technology Applications and Development Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to render scientifically accurate views of the planets studied by JPL missions and the spacecraft used in that study.
Animations of the Solar System's outer planets orbiting. This animation is 100 times faster than the inner planet animation. The planets and other large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic. Smaller icy objects such as comets frequently orbit at significantly greater angles to this plane.
Most of the planets orbit the Sun very nearly in the same plane in which Earth orbits, the ecliptic. Five planets (Earth included) lined up along the ecliptic in July 2010, illustrating how the planets orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane. Photo taken at sunset, looking west over Surakarta, Java, Indonesia.
SOLEX is a free computer application that calculates and displays the positions and dynamics of bodies that are part of the Solar System. It was developed by Aldo Vitagliano, a professor of inorganic chemistry at the Federico II University of Naples. SOLEX can generate ephemeris of Solar System objects, including planets and asteroids.
The Grand tack hypothesis explains how in the Solar System giant planets migrated in unique way to form the Solar System belts and near circular orbit of planets around the Sun. [10] [11] [9] The Solar System's belts are one key parameters for a Solar System that can support complex life, as circular orbits are a parameter needed for the ...
A gravity assist, gravity assist maneuver, swing-by, or generally a gravitational slingshot in orbital mechanics, is a type of spaceflight flyby which makes use of the relative movement (e.g. orbit around the Sun) and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically to save propellant and reduce expense.
Newton proposed that the orbits of planets about the Sun are largely elliptical because the Sun's gravitation is dominant; to first approximation, the presence of the other planets can be ignored. By analogy, the elliptical orbit of the Moon about the Earth was dominated by the Earth's gravity; to first approximation, the Sun's gravity and ...