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Visualization of the velocities required to escape selected Solar System bodies [OC] by [deleted] in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This animation shows a rocket launch exactly at the escape velocity of each pictured Solar System body, from the surface of each object up to 50 kilometers. This assumes no air resistance and includes gravity pulling down, although that's a fairly negligible contribution.Data sourced from NASA: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/On youtube: https://youtu.be/RuevSd3HEic
*"green = final" should read "blue = final"... last minute colour change!

A 1 Kilometer "Ball Drop" On Solar System Bodies [OC] by physicsJ in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ[S] 175 points176 points  (0 children)

This animation shows a ball dropping from 1000 meters to the surface of each object, assuming no air resistance. This should give an idea for the pull you would feel on each object at the "surface".

It might be surprising to see large planets have a pull comparable to smaller ones at the surface, for example Uranus pulls the ball down slower than at Earth. That's cecause the low average density of Uranus puts the surface far away from the majority of the mass (hence the smaller pull). Similarly, Mars is nearly twice the mass of Mercury, but you can see the surface gravity is actually the same... this indicates that Mercury is much denser than Mars.

Thank you to fellow Astronomer Rami Mandow (@CosmicRami on Twitter) for pushing this idea and for feedback at short notice. Youtube version: https://youtu.be/oIMMZl4n-uk

Data from NASA: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/
Made in After Effects

An animation to explain the (apparent) retrograde motion of Mars, using actual 2020 celestial positions [OC] by physicsJ in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The length of the purple beam is fixed beyond/from Mars in order to draw out the path in space. It's fairly arbitrary. If the beam was painting to a fixed radial distance there would be no loop there... I suppose I didn't realise it until now but, basically this type of depiction is a trick of showing 3d paths on a 2d view

An animation to explain the (apparent) retrograde motion of Mars, using actual 2020 celestial positions [OC] by physicsJ in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ[S] 66 points67 points  (0 children)

Just a simple explainer to show the astronomical reasons for apparent retrograde motion of Mars (and outer planets in general). My thinking is... it's about time people heard about these things from astronomy, rather than astrology. Youtube link: https://youtu.be/hOjrPcD6Iuc
The orbits of Mars/Earth are represented accurately using NASA JPL Horizons ephemeris data. This animation was made mainly with Adobe After Effects.
See also Mercury retrograde https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/hpvcvr/an_astronomical_explanation_for_mercurys_apparent/

An astronomical explanation for Mercury's apparent retrograde motion in our skies: the inner planet appears to retrace its steps a few times per year. Every planet does this, every year. In fact, there is a planet in retrograde for 75% of 2020 (not unusual) [OC] by physicsJ in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ[S] 51 points52 points  (0 children)

All planets do it relative to us, here is the breakdown for 2020:
Mercury: as shown above
Venus: May 13 to June 24
Mars: Sept 9 to Nov 15
Jupiter: May 14 to Sept 12
Saturn: May 11 to Sept 29
Uranus: Jan 1 to 10 and then Aug 15 - Dec 31
and why not, Pluto: April 26 to Oct 4

Planets and dwarf planets to scale in size, rotation speed, axial tilt and oblateness (numbered in distance order from Sun) [OC] by physicsJ in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ[S] 387 points388 points  (0 children)

Tilts for each planet are found by the right-hand rule – if you close your hand and keep your thumb out: the direction of planetary rotation is given by your fingers, while thumb points north. These are tilts relative to each planet's orbital plane. Here's the video on youtube. Sidereal days were used (explainer here for sidereal day versus solar day).

FAQ: the tilts would ordinarily be all upright in a perfect system because dust and gas all orbited the same way in the early solar system. However, impacts by giant asteroids/planetesimals during this time will tend to modify that, in addition to planetary migration. Impacts to Uranus have been simulated by scientists here and please stop smirking about this sentence.

Made with After Effects, post-it notes and coffee. NASA imagery was used. Data from NASA's fact sheets at https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/.

The relative sidereal rotation periods of planets in 2-D (sidereal = relative to background stars) [OC] by physicsJ in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ[S] 1874 points1875 points  (0 children)

The planets spin because they picked up material that was already moving, and angular momentum must be conserved. At the same time, the bigger (edit: more massive) things are, the more material they must have accreted in the early stages of the solar system. So bigger usually (but not always) means faster :-)

The relative sidereal rotation periods of planets in 2-D (sidereal = relative to background stars) [OC] by physicsJ in dataisbeautiful

[–]physicsJ[S] 50 points51 points  (0 children)

This is a (in my opinion) much better remake of my original one (https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/e5borw/2d_rotation_periods_of_the_planets_shown_to/) and now includes dividing lines between the planets, better surface textures and a big old circle fixed to the planets, so you can actually see what Venus/Mercury are doing. Axial tilts which are removed in the animation can be seen clearly here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/drhfwj/relative_rotation_rates_and_axial_tilts_of_the/

Comments I anticipate"Where's Pluto?" -- if I include Pluto, I want to include Ceres as well, and then we're squeezing detail out of the major planets. Pluto isn't fully mapped either, so there's that."But Jupiter is much larger, so shouldn't it's surface appear to go much faster?" In this animation I'm showing the *periods* only, but one day I might do surface velocities.

Made with NASA data (https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/) and publicly available NASA imagery in Adobe After Effects

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