My 6 year old daughter loves this so much - maybe one day she'll get to visit one of them. I recently made a simple app to compare the sizes of planets, suns etc. when she asked how big the moon was compared to the sun. Might be interesting to folk here: http://callumprentice.github.io/apps/celestial_bodies/index....
I like using a 1 Megameter per millimeter "planets view" (Earth is a blue marble; Jupiter is a striped ball; the Sun is an adult-sized white ball).[1] So you can google for lengths in km, trim 3 digits, and draw in millimeters.
Relatedly, building a scale model solar system, in a hallway, field or neighborhood, is a popular educational activity, with a lot of variants and instructions online.
This is awesome. Doesn't seem to do turn-by-turn :) But on that note, does anyone know a good software to estimate trip times in the solar system? E.g. that can include things like optimal launch windows?
Very cool, now please put them in Google "Earth" (-like app) so that I can fly around on a tablet/smartphone.
It would also have been cool if the sun would be it's real (apparent) size, now it's the same for Mercurius and for Pluto but I always love that feeling images of Pluto give you, the loneliness, so far away from the sun.
Some kind of animation when flying between planets would also be nice. I like the effect of seeing a dark side when zooming out, this makes it nice to show how day and night work to my kids.
> It would also have been cool if the sun would be it's real (apparent) size, now it's the same for Mercurius and for Pluto but I always love that feeling images of Pluto give you, the loneliness, so far away from the sun.
You can't seem to see the Earth when rotating around the Moon either. Would be cool to have Jupiter and Saturn on the backdrop as well for their respective moons, they all give a sense of perspective. I know they would be out of scope/a collage of eternally changing clouds but I feel it's too bad there's none of the gas giants either, even if it's only as a sphere you could rotate around.
That strip was taking at a different light situation than the background. It also has a higher resolution. There are many smaller strips and patches on the surface that look similarly out of place.
Google could blend them somehow but I guess much more imagery would be needed to have the average look good.
Also check out the overexaggerated shadowy mess at the poles. :)
Same goes for lots of other places. A few years ago, even the earth map was full with these stripes when Google did not had good images from everywhere. Also check out Pluto, one half of the planet is just a smear.
Note that data from more than one source is combined to make these maps. And, some sites have been studied more closely than others due to lunar mission site selection studies.
Looks like it's located in the Sea of Tranquility near one of the Maskelyne craters. It's too low res to find the Station of Tranquility, though. If anybody has any luck, let us know!
