Thread

1. wanick · 1790710695 · focus · HN ↗

   Author here. It's a browser view of the Solar System at real scale, with its current state, plus the objects around Earth from the CelesTrak catalog.

   Data: CelesTrak TLEs (SGP4), asteroids and comets from JPL SBDB, spacecraft positions from JPL Horizons. Updated daily.

   Rendering is WebGL2, orbit propagation runs in web workers. The asteroid set (~30 MB) loads in the background.

   The time slider runs forwards and backwards; satellites appear and disappear by launch date.

   1. ____tom____ · 1790720056 · focus · HN ↗

      > It's a browser view of the Solar System at real scale

      Is it really? I don't think you could see the satellites, if they weren't drawn at 1000x scale. I am wrong?

      At real scale, i would expect to not see anything.

      1. bbor · 1790740979 · focus · HN ↗

         Those are just UX elements -- indeed, no satellite other than maaaaaybe the ISS could be seen here. For one thing, anything in LEO would seem to be moving so darn fast that it'd be disorienting.

         I imagine there's various similar problems -- Saturn's rings not having the exact right pattern, asteroids not matching their real shape, all the planets being perfect spheres, etc. But I think this resoundingly meets the bar for "a view of the Solar System". Maps and territories and all that, y'know? A quick sketch in a textbook can also be a "a view" while containing far less detail.

         1. philipwhiuk · 1790763710 · focus · HN ↗

            > For one thing, anything in LEO would seem to be moving so darn fast that it'd be disorienting.

            They take ~90 minutes to orbit - it's not that quick. The satellites are actually moving at the right speed.

            1. bbor · 1790807684 · focus · HN ↗

               Sorry, to clarify: if you zoomed in close enough to see the actual objects without digital labels, then they’d be going very fast

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