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Here's a visualization I made of the Saturn system with an option to highlight the newly discovered moons: https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/examples/saturn/ind
by typpo 7y ago
Here's a visualization I made of the Saturn system with an option to highlight the newly discovered moons:
https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/examples/saturn/index.html https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/examples/saturn/index.html
Besides the 20 new moons, I find it interesting that there are 8 "lost" moons. These are objects observed as far back as 2004 - but their current locations are unknown.
- flattone 7y agoI am in heaven playing with this. Sorry but this is the end of my comment.
- vibrio 7y agoI wanted to say this, but since you did already, I'm going back to playing with the moons...
- jakeogh 7y agoFun. Is there a way to accelerate?
- cydonian_monk 7y agoThis, your other examples, and spacekit as a whole are absolutely amazing. Thanks for sharing this link.
- deepaksurti 7y ago+10 for spacekit [0] [0] https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/ https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/
- gojomo 7y agoPlanets sprouting new moons, flinging off old moons – reminds of the 1983 coin-op video game, 'Mad Planets': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Planets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Planets
- saagarjha 7y agoIs there a reason why moons don't seem to orbit above Saturn's poles?
- frabert 7y agoMoons generally orbit on the same plane as their planet's orbit plane
- saagarjha 7y agoIs this because polar orbits are unstable in some sense, or because pretty much everything already is in the planet's plane?
- frabert 7y agoMostly because of conservation of angular momentum: the solar system formed while spinning, and that direction has been maintained. The cases where this is not true (for example, Uranus has its poles "facing the plane" instead of having them orthogonal to it) are likely due to past collisions with foreign bodies that caused the tilt to appear.
- saagarjha 7y agoAre most of these moons from when the solar system formed?
- twic 7y agoMaybe not, but the angular momentum is. Without a big input of energy and momentum to cause a plane change, anything that forms in the solar system will orbit roughly in the plane of the ecliptic, and will spin on an axis normal to it.
- raattgift 7y agoThat's a good question, and I don't think you'll find an especially convincing answer. Polar orbits are "unstable" in a few senses, namely that even in an ideal setting orbital planes will precess around central masses that are lumpy rather than spherically symmetric; rotation of a lumpy central mass introduces further precessions. Nodal precession is pretty interesting, for example. One can concoct all sorts of odd orbital changes by perturbing the rotating central mass "under" a test object in stable orbit. However, in the case of known solar system bodies, slowly shifting a satellite in near-polar orbit into a near-equatorial orbit conflicts with quite a lot of evidence; by the mid 1960s it was pretty safe to say that known inner moons maintain over very long timescales an almost constant orbital inclination with respect to the planet's equator, while outer moons maintain an almost constant orbital inclination with respect to the invariable plane of the solar system. Interesting exceptions are Triton and Earth's moon, both of which have significant inclinations to their planets. Precessions are primarily driven by the planet for the inner moons, and by the sun for the outer moons. It's probably worth paying some close attention to Uranus and its known moons (and their formation and/or capture) when considering the various thoughts people have put into the thread. Most of the moons and rings have negligible inclination (i.e., they're coplanar with Uranus's equator), and Uranus's extreme axial tilt is intriguing. If the tilt is because of a giant collision, did the relevant moons and rings follow the planetary tilt? Or did they form in the highly-tilted equatorial plane (for some of the moons), or were they captured into the equatorial plane (for others) post-tilt?
- NotSammyHagar 7y agoThat visualization is awesome! Everyone try it. You can easily zoom in and our and rotate in any of the 3 axis. It's amazing to see how far away these 'new moons' are from being in the same plane as the older, larger moons.
- kzrdude 7y agoIs there an astro term for differentiating the planar moons and the outer ones? That moon cloud looks like as if it is Saturn's Kuiper belt or Oort cloud.
- kkaranth 7y agoVery cool! I'm surprised that they orbit so quickly!
- typpo 7y agoThe speed measurement in the viz adjusts "visualization days per real second". It's set at 0.1 because the inner moons orbit very quickly. Pan orbits Saturn every 14 hours whereas Fornjot, the outermost named satellite, orbits every 1354 days.
- cheyne_nz 7y agoVery cool! It would be nice if there was a 'Highlight None' option in the drop-down.
- typpo 7y agoThanks! I've added this now.
- enriquto 7y agoImpressive! It looks just like celestia! I'm in awe
- Buttons840 7y agoI couldn't find any information about the "lost" moons you mentioned. Tell me more. What is the name of one or all of those moons?
- typpo 7y agoThe moons are: S/2004 S 7, S/2004 S 12, S/2004 S 13, S/2004 S 17, S/2006 S 1, S/2006 S 3, S/2007 S 2, S/2007 S 3. There are short Wikipedia articles for each one. JPL provides orbital elements but presumably they are not quite correct, otherwise we could locate them: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?sat_elem https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?sat_elem