Our Solar System and Beyond

Last crawled date: 2 years, 10 months ago

Most people think of our Solar System as the area of space containing the 8 planets circulating our Sun (Pluto being the 9th planet until it was downgraded to Dwarf Planet status in 2006 by The International Astronomical Union (IAU). However, to the astronomer, our Solar System encompases a vast expanse of space reaching far beyond our usual reference point of Pluto, to a distance where the gravitational influence of the Sun can no longer be felt. This model attempts to show that expance of space... and beyond. To do this, there are a total of 31 scenes that can be viewed individually, or played back in sequence as desired. PLEASE NOTE - (1) All distances are measured in Astronomical Units (AU), equal to the distance between the Sun and the Earth, or about 150,000,000 kilometers. (2) Planetary orbits are to scale, while the Sun and planets have been scaled up for illustration purposes. (3) Due to the scale of the model (almost 1:270,000), it should be viewed using the Camera / Parallel Projection setting, Otherwise, distortions to the model will result. (4) Model features can be toggled on and off from within the Layer Manager, including Layers 5-9 which will display various satellites that orbit within the Kuiper Cloud and Scattered Disk areas ot the Solar System. (5) All planetary globes are low rez versions of my previous models, created using Anim8or and overlaid with orthographic maps from various sources. #Alpha_Centauri #Alpha_Centauri_A #Alpha_Centauri_B #Alpha_Centauri_C #Asteroid #Asteroid_belt #Astronomical_Unit #AU #Gaia #Kuiper #Kuiper_cloud #light_year #moon #Oort #Oort_cloud #Orbit #Planet #Proxima_Centauri #Scattered_Disk #Sol #Solar_System #Sun