Note: If you cannot see Mercury, Venus, and Mars please click on "Settings"
and under "Shaders" select "Disabled".
The following formulas are used to calculate the position of each planet. Certain assumptions are made and therefore the positions are only approximations.
First the mean anomoly is calculated:
,where M is the mean anomoly and Tp and longitude of perihelion are constants.
Then the heliocentric longitude is calculated:
,where v is the true anomoly. However, by assuming that eccentricity is 0 (the orbit of the planet is a perfect circle), the true anomoly becomes the mean anomoly (M).
So now, since the radius of the orbit of the planets is given, and we also have the heliocentric longitude, we can calculate the coordinate of the planet in the solar system using simple trigonometry:
X coordinate = orbital radius * cos(heliocentric longitude)
Y coordinate = orbital radius * sin(heliocentric longitude)
For more information and to find out how to get a better approximation please refer to the following book:
Practical astronomy with your calculator By Peter Duffett-Smith
- Great care has been taken to make sure the position of the planets and their orientation (especially that of the Earth's) as well as the information about the planets are accurate, however, the author of this application is not responsible for the accuracy of this information.
- The information about the planets are taken from the http://www.wikipedia.org website.
- The method for calculating the position of the planets is taken from the book Practical astronomy with your calculator By Peter Duffett-Smith [page 103].
- The texture of the planets are taken from http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html
- This application uses the excellent http://jquery.com/ and min.Three.js frameworks.
- The author's website: http://esfandiarmaghsoudi.ca/
