3 ms·
Was kind of hoping to see pictures of the planets themselves, evenly spaced on a log scale. Those line graphs were a little less exciting.
by debt 9y ago
Was kind of hoping to see pictures of the planets themselves, evenly spaced on a log scale. Those line graphs were a little less exciting.
- rcthompson 9y agoUnfortunately, I believe we only have decent photos for one of the mentioned solar systems.
- EGreg 9y agoWould have made for a great illustration, methinks!
- pacaro 9y agoI’m working on a solar system chart for my daughter, to my eye it’s more aesthetically pleasing to scale both distance from the sun and radius by square root. Regardless of your approach the sun is too big to usefully represent on the same scale and have all other objects be visible
- bdamm 9y agoGraphs of exoplanet orbits exist and are easy to locate: For example: http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/planet/KOI-1843.03/ http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/planet/KOI-1843.03/ It isn't on a log scale but this example is easy to see as a counterexample to the OP as there are two planets out in large orbits that orbit close together with a large gap between the first planet.
- topspin 9y agoResolving extrasolar planets so difficult that one can concisely list[1] all of the planets that have ever been resolved and adding an entry is a significant achievement. Directly imaging extrasolar planets is only possible given certain conditions (type of star, orbit, planet size/type, etc.) The vast bulk of extrasolar planets cannot be resolved directly with contemporary instruments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_directly_imaged_exoplanets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_directly_imaged_exopla...
- outworlder 9y agoWe cannot even take a picture of Pluto that's bigger than a few pixels without sending a probe there. Not sure images from extrasolar systems, even if available, would be very exciting.