Solar System Scales with the Dwarf Planets

compiled by Dinoj Surendran and modified by Phillip Dukes

Download Solar System Scales with the Dwarf Planets with Partiview and related data files
 

On 24 August 2006, the International Astronomical Union resolved that the Solar System consists of eight "planets": Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. A new distinct class of objects called "dwarf planets" was also decided. It was agreed that "planets" and "dwarf planets" are two distinct classes of objects. Members of this "dwarf planet" category include the former asteriod Ceres, Pluto, and 2003 UB₃₁₃ (was commonly called Xena) now officially designated Eris since 13 September 2006.
The program Solar Syatem Scales demonstrates the relative sizes of the Sun, the eight classical planets, and the new classification of 3 dwarf planets in our Solar System. All textures, except Pluto and Xena (their textures are an artist's conception), are based on actual satellite images. These are mostly from the Views of the Solar System site by Calvin J. Hamilton, though the Mars texture comes from the USGS based on Viking images and the Earth texture from NASA's Blue Marble site. The radii of the spheres are accurate to the nearest 10 kilometers.

PC Instructions: Click on SolarSystemScales.bat to start this up on a regular single screen, or on SolarSystemScales_geowall.bat to start this up on a GeoWall. You can control which objects turn on at startup by editing the .cf files; at present all objects are turned on.

Saturn and the other gas giants are ringless; this was yet another one of Dinoj's projects that didnt go anywhere; he based it on Selden Ball's Planets for Partiview project.

Linux Instructions: make sure the CSH files are executable ("chmod +x blah.csh") then type "./blah.csh" from the Linux prompt where the Windows instructions say "click on blah.bat".

Navigation Instructions

The trick to navigation is to press a mouse button down, move the mouse, and release the mouse button. Navigation is inertia-based, so whatever you were doing when the mouse button is released continue to happens.

• Rotation : left click & hold.
• Zooming: Right click (and hold!) the mouse and move up and down. (If you have a Mac with a one-button mouse, press the option key as you click that button.)
• Stopping motion: click once with the mouse. Don't move the mouse while the mouse button is down.
• Quit: press escape.

Press buttons to turn planets off and on. How many you can have on at one time depends on how much graphics memory your computer has.

Pre-Programmed Flight Path

A flight path is included and pre-loaded, you can change the flight path by editing the .cf file. The flight path flies through the Sun and pauses for a look at the relative sizes of Jupiter and Saturn. Then it continues and pauses for a look at the relative sizes of Uranus and Neptune. It continues and pauses again for a look at Earth and Venus (turn Venus off  to view the Earth). It continues then pauses at Xena, Pluto, and Ceres.