All The Asteroids Orbiting the Sun, in 3d

All the asteroids orbiting the sun - yes it's busy out there.
Asteroid data was gleaned from astorb.dat, supplied by Dr Edward Bowell under funding NASA grant NAG5-4741, and in part by the Lowell Observatory endowment.
ftp://ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb/astorb.html

The rendering software is entirely my own work.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• test3d
• asteroids
• astronomy

[nhnifong]

What do the colors mean?

[szyzyg]

@nhnifong green asteroids are main belt, yellow asteroids cross mars orbit and red asteroids cross the Earth's orbits

[mdhean]

@eamonnrussell It is most stable when all the forces are in 2 dimensions (in a flat plane) and not 3 dimensions (a ball). If Mars were to be hit from the bottom by a large asteroid and this tilted Mars' orbit to the plane of the Solar System, when Mars was above the plane all the planets would pull down on it. Conversely when Mars is below the plane the planets would pull up on it and this would tend to pull Mars' orbit back in line with the rest of the planets.

[mtext]

Needs more Trifonic!

[TheReasonWhyGuy]

@szyzyg quite simply...

green=not bad

yellow=maybe bad

red=kinda bad

[mdhean]

@tdog158 Yes, it's impact is proportional to it's mass- force of gravity.

[tdog158]

@mdhean Would Mars also have a small impact on the other planets?

[club4ghz]

where can i download it?

[tarbogman]

great vid! i will be sharing this to all the goofs that think the world will end on 2012 by an asteroid or comet.

its funny, i see a video like this and think AWESOME!

others see this video and think "oh God, we're DOOMED!"

i see this and think there is your proof - we can find and track earth life distroying objects. now just got to help show the blind that humans are smart enough to know how to move them out of the way.

[Redcaster916]

very cool