The SPEED OF DARK thought experiment (real units, real time) Interplanetary 2026-09-23 | The SPEED OF DARK thought experiment (real units, real time)
Earth from the Moon. The Earthrise effect is caused by the spacecraft motion as it orbited the Moon Interplanetary 2022-11-07 | ...
A planetary-scale heat wave in Jupiters upper atmosphere, sent by the aurora Interplanetary 2022-09-23 | A panning-view of Jupiter's upper atmospheric temperatures, 1000 kilometers above the cloud tops. Jupiter is shown on top of a visible image for context. In this snapshot, the auroral region appears to have shed a massive, planetary-scale wave of heating towards the equator. The feature is over 130,000 kilometers long, or 10-Earth diameters, and is hundreds of degrees warmer than the background. Read about the study here! europlanet-society.org/planetary-scale-heat-wave-discovered-in-jupiters-atmosphereVisible Jupiter image is from Hubble / NASA / ESA / A. Simon (NASA GSFC) / J. Schmidt.
9 Hour 55 Min 30 Sec of JUPITER Rotating in Real-Time – With Background Music Interplanetary 2022-09-06 | Jupiter rotates in 9 hours 55minutes and 30 seconds. It's the fastest-rotating planet in the solar system as well as the largest! Larger planets tend to be faster because, during solar system formation, they pulled in more material than the other planets. The material it pulled in was already moving, so by picking up more material it also acquired its momentum, so more material = more speed! Imagery from NASA/ESA/Hubble/A. Simon(GSFC)/J. SchmidtTrack listLight Expanse – Unicorn headsEarly Avril - Unicorn HeadsDrifting at 432 Hz - Unicorn HeadsSatya Yuga - Jesse GallagherThe Golden Present - Jesse GallagherVenkatesananda - Jesse Gallagher#Music #10hours #10 #hour #10hourmusic #study #relax
How BIG the Moon used to look in our sky – simulation of Lunar Retreat Interplanetary 2022-09-04 | Hey! The Moon is moving away from us NOW at a rate of 3.8cm/year (1.5"/yr). Why is it moving away? The Moon lifts the oceans (+Earth) towards it, but Earth rotates and moves the oceans away from being directly under the Moon. The oceans can then pull the Moon sideways a bit, making it orbit Earth faster. A faster orbit means it better-escapes Earth's gravity, so it drifts away. This 'lunar retreat' rate has varied over the last 4.5 billion years. Causes of variation: (1) meteor impacts on Earth or Moon. (2) reconfiguration of landmasses with earthquakes that generate changes in the rotational axis of the Earth. Made with data from de Azarevich et al., (2017):link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00367-017-0500-zMusic: Youtube library / Mysterious Strange Things – Yung LogosSounds a bit like Dexter, right?
The PLANETS* to scale not only in size, but also in their tilt and rotation speed. *plus Pluto/Ceres Interplanetary 2022-01-22 | If you're new to my channel, I just want to point out that I only really use this as "storage" for the videos atm. One day I might do proper YouTube videos, but YouTubing is a big time commitment that I'm not ready for yet... go thank your favorite YouTube now because they work hard on this stuff!Anyway in this video... to roughly explain the tilts: we think they started out roughly the same in tilt, so either by huge impacts, tidal forces or planetary migration the tilts have been changed. The reason why larger planets tend to spin faster is because they took on more of the Sun-orbiting mass, adding the mass's orbital motion to their spin in the process
How far can we throw a ball on other worlds? Interplanetary 2022-01-04 | New video just dropped! Well, it was thrown first. For maximum range, throw at 45 degrees... on Pluto.
The reason for the seasons, solstices and equinox (southern hemisphere) Interplanetary 2021-12-16 | Earth is tilted 23.4 degrees: our north pole points to a star called Polaris. Next week our tilt, combined with Earth's position in orbit relative to the Sun, gives the southern hemisphere its longest days and most intense sunlight of the whole year. This vid is made for the southern hemisphere, here is the animation for the northern hemisphere: youtu.be/FCk6Pzu-DiYWhile the length of time exposed to sunlight is pretty clear from the video, the reason the intensity changes may not be: Near the edges of Earth as observed from the Sun, more surface area is being presented to a given sunbeam than it is near the middle. In other words light near the edge is diluted over a wide area. So in the winter hemisphere you are moving into a more 'diluted' place for sunlight
The reason for the seasons, solstices and equinox Interplanetary 2021-12-16 | Earth is tilted 23.4 degrees: our north pole points to a star called Polaris. Next week our tilt, combined with Earth's position in orbit relative to the Sun, gives the northern hemisphere its shortest days and least intense sunlight of the whole year. This vid is made for the northern hemisphere, here is the animation for the southern hemisphere: youtu.be/7SvcUtQZIRcWhile the length of time exposed to sunlight is pretty clear from the video, the reason the intensity changes may not be: Near the edges of Earth as observed from the Sun, more surface area is being presented to a given sunbeam than it is near the middle. In other words light near the edge is diluted over a wide area. So in the winter hemisphere you are moving into a more 'diluted' place for sunlight
The heating of Jupiters entire global upper atmosphere by aurora Interplanetary 2021-08-04 | Jupiter is first shown in visible light for context before an artistic impression of the Jovian upper atmosphere's infrared glow is overlain. The brightness of this upper atmosphere layer corresponds to temperatures, from hot to cold, in this order: white, yellow, bright red and lastly, dark red. The aurorae are the hottest regions and the animation shows how heat is carried by winds away from the aurora to cause planet-wide heating. At the end, real data is added with a temperature scale, indicating the observed global temperatures measured in the study.Press release: nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/juno-jupiter-auroral-heatingPaper (no paywall): nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03706-wCredit: J. O'Donoghue (JAXA)/Hubble/NASA/ESA/A. Simon/J. Schmidt
Visualization of the velocities required to escape Solar System bodies Interplanetary 2021-07-18 | This animation shows a rocket launch exactly at the escape velocity of each pictured Solar System body, from the surface of each object up to 50 kilometers. This assumes no air resistance and includes gravity pulling down, although that's a fairly negligible contribution.Data sourced from NASA: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet
A 1 Kilometer Ball Drop On Solar System Bodies Interplanetary 2021-07-11 | This animation shows a ball dropping from 1000 meters to the surface of each object, assuming no air resistance. This should give an idea for the pull you would feel on each object.It might be surprising to see large planets have a pull comparable to smaller ones at the surface, for example Uranus pulls the ball down slower than at Earth! Why? Because the low average density of Uranus puts the surface far away from the majority of the mass. Similarly, Mars is nearly twice the mass of Mercury, but you can see the surface gravity is actually the same... this indicates that Mercury is much denser than Mars.Thank you to fellow Astronomer Rami Mandow (@CosmicRami on Twitter) for pushing this idea and for feedback at short notice. Data sourced from NASA: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet
A straightforward comparison of the inner planets Interplanetary 2021-06-05 | Approx. true colour imagery is used, in other words this is roughly what you would see with your own eyes if nearby. Sizes, tilts, rotations to scale on the top row, distances to scale on the bottom row.
Sizes of celestial objects in the sky over the next 3 years using Moon as a reference Interplanetary 2021-01-24 | These are in-sky size of solar system objects relative to eachother over the next 3 years. The Moon's changing position & speed in its 5.1° inclination orbit makes it appear to wobble. This is known as Libration and it allows us to see up to 58% of the lunar surface! We need to specify angles precisely so we use arc seconds: 1° = 60 arc minutes (′) and 1′ = 60 arc seconds (″) — so 1″ = 1/3600° ! Imagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing / NASA SVS NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi
This is how the Moon will look for the next couple of years on the near and far side, simultaneously Interplanetary 2021-01-23 | This is how the Moon will look for the next couple of years on the near and far side, simultaneouslyThe Moon's changing position & speed in its 5.1° inclination orbit makes it appear to wobble. This is known as Libration and it allows us to see up to 58% of the lunar surface!
Great Conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn. Heres what theyll look like to scale in the sky! Interplanetary 2020-12-21 | Look south-west after sunset. Occurs in 9hr 25m from *now*. They're close for a long time so don't worry about not being preciseImagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
Jupiter and Saturn conjunction video 3! *Moon only pictured here to show the scale* Interplanetary 2020-12-20 | TOMORROW Jupiter and Saturn will be at their closest separation in the sky since 1623 at 0.1° apart. This animation shows how close they are in the sky. Because 0.1° is hard to picture, I've added the Moon to give us a sense of scale (Moon is ~0.5° diameter) #GreatConjunction2020Imagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
Great Conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn 2020, with Moon added to show scale Interplanetary 2020-12-20 | TOMORROW Jupiter and Saturn will be at their closest separation in the sky since 1623 at 0.1° apart. Here's an animation showing exactly how close that is relative to a familiar object, the Moon! (Moon ONLY added to illustrate the scale)Imagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
The Great Conjunction 2020 Jupiter & Saturn Interplanetary 2020-12-19 | On 21 December Jupiter and Saturn will be at their closest separation in the sky since 1623, at just 0.1° apart! In this new to-scale animation I follow the mid-point between them in the sky
Only a Venus Sidereal day is longer than a Venus year! Interplanetary 2020-10-25 | Let's clear this up! In 1 Venusian year there are 1.92 Venus Solar days – a Solar day is the time taken to rotate relative to Sun (it's the common meaning of "day"). A day on Venus is only longer than its year for a Venus Sidereal day – time taken to rotate relative to the starsImagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
Selected solar system objects to scale in size, rotation, tilt! Interplanetary 2020-10-15 | Data: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/index.htmlImagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
A simple comparison between Earth, Mars and the Moon Interplanetary 2020-10-14 | The Moon and Mars are humanity's first stepping stones in the physical exploration of the universe, so I thought it'd be useful to make a clear graphic to compare them all
Selected solar system objects to scale in size, rotation speed and axial tilt Interplanetary 2020-10-12 | More info/descriptions/animations: twitter.com/physicsJ/status/1300748787011346432 data from: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/index.htmlImagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
Here are the planets... with the only two mapped dwarf planets Interplanetary 2020-09-02 | A close-up of the eight planets in our solar system, along with a couple of dwarf planets, to scale in relative rotation speeds and axial tilts.Imagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top (some more info twitter.com/physicsJ/status/1545068341798195200)
The actual sizes of planets in our sky relative to the Moon (and eachother) until late 2022 Interplanetary 2020-08-11 | Time passes at 30 days per second in this video and because the Moon orbits in 27.3 days it appears to shrink/grow often. Oh and wait for Venus to have its moment. Arc seconds, what's that? We need to specify angles precisely so we use something called arc seconds, here's some handy conversions:1° = 60 arc minutes (′) 1′ = 60 arc seconds (″)so 1″ = 1/3600 of 1°Imagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
These are apparent in-sky size of solar system objects relative to eachother over the next 2 years Interplanetary 2020-08-11 | These are apparent in-sky size of solar system objects relative to eachother over the next 2 years, with time passing at 10 days each second. We need to specify angles precisely so we use arc seconds: 1° = 60 arc minutes (′) and 1′ = 60 arc seconds (″) — so 1″ = 1/3600° ! Imagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
An animation to explain the (apparent) retrograde motion of Mars, using actual 2020 planet positions Interplanetary 2020-07-14 | NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
The astronomical explanation for Mercury retrograde Interplanetary 2020-07-12 | An astronomical explanation for Mercury's retrograde motion: the inner planet appears to retrace its steps a few times per year. Every planet does this, every year. In fact, there is a planet in retrograde for 75% of 2020Imagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
Planets and dwarf planets to scale in size, rotation speed & axial tilt in distance order from Sun Interplanetary 2020-06-26 | Planets and dwarf planets to scale in size, rotation speed and axial tilt (in order of distance from the Sun). There are many more dwarf planet candidates, but they aren't mapped so aren't included. Sidereal day lengths shown. By Dr James O'Donoghue, @physicsJ on TwitterImagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
The rotation periods of the planets cast to a single sphere. Rotations relative to background stars Interplanetary 2020-06-21 | ...
The relative sidereal rotation periods of planets in 2-D (sidereal=relative to background stars) Interplanetary 2020-06-21 | From my @physicsJ account on twitter, further info there twitter.com/physicsJ/status/1274542477853122561Imagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
The orbit(s) of Saturns rings Interplanetary 2020-06-14 | Countless shards of frozen water ice form Saturn's rings, which range in size from microscopic icy dust to bus-sized ice bergs. Each piece has its own orbit: close to Saturn they orbit fast, far away they orbit slow. Major ring segments are A-to-F (labelled in order of discovery)Imagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / SSI / JPL-Caltech / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0
Earth sees the same face of Venus every single time the two planets are closest Interplanetary 2020-05-21 | Earth sees the same side of Venus every single time the two planets are closest (when Venus is in "inferior conjunction"). We don't know why it happens for sure, but it seems likely Venus is locked due to the gravitational influence of Earth with each pass.Rather than show simulated data, these are the actual positions of these bodies. Made with Adobe After Effects and NASA ephemeris data. (Ephemerides can be obtained: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi)
Light speed journey to Mars in real time Interplanetary 2020-05-19 | This is a different version of the my previous upload. Light pulses 1-million kmImagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0
Light speed to scale in time and space, its fast but slow Interplanetary 2020-05-18 | Self-explanatory this one, but as usual I simultaneously post these on Twitter @physicsJ and answer questions there. Cheers for watchingImagery from: NASA/ Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0
How lunar and solar tides work Interplanetary 2020-05-16 | Earth merely rotates through the tides: in 24hr 50min there are 2 high & 2 low tides, with the extra 50min due to the Moon orbiting a little each Earth day. The Sun also produces tides but at 46% the strength of Lunar tides: during Full/new Moon they join forcesImagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0
Pluto and Charon are a fine example of how bodies orbit the center of mass (barycenter) Interplanetary 2020-05-07 | Here the barycenter is completely outside of Pluto all the time, so you could say this is a (dwarf-)double planet system. Charon is 12% the mass of Pluto, and they're BOTH tidally locked!About tidal lock: here each body sees the same face of the other body all the time. That means the rotation periods AND orbit periods (around Barycenter) of BOTH bodies are the same; in this case 6.39 days. How convenient that we only have to remember 1 number for 4 parameters.It's worth noting that tidal locking doesn't always mean two bodies face eachother, but it's usually the case. Mercury for example is in tidal lock with the Sun, but it rotates on its axis three times for every two orbits it makes around the Sun.Imagery from: NASA / USGS / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
The Earth-Moon Barycenter: The Moon doesnt orbit Earths center and Earth doesnt stay still (3D!) Interplanetary 2020-05-01 | Earth moves up to 5000 km away from the common center of mass (barycenter) between Earth and Moon, this is due to the Moon's gravitational influence! So here *both* Earth & Moon orbit their common center of mass (and do stick around to see the speed-up on Aug 12...). Made with actual predictive data from NASAFollow for early releases and Q&A @physicsJ Twitter
Everything in the Solar System orbits the center of mass (its rarely in the center of the Sun!) Interplanetary 2020-04-29 | It's fair to say planets orbit the Sun, but that's not 100% true. The Sun holds 99.8% of the Solar System's mass, Jupiter contains most of what's left (Saturn a distant 2nd), and in this vid you'll see how Jupiter plays tug of war with the Sun. Everything orbits a center of mass!Imagery from: NASA / Hubble / Cassini / JHUAPL / SwRI / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
How Earth looks from the Moon / how the Moon looks from Earth, during April 2020 Interplanetary 2020-04-19 | Moon and Earth (from the Moon) phases for April 2020 at the high time resolution (15min per frame). This is *computer generated* but based on real NASA imagery, lunar topography, using NASA JPL coordinates/data (Elevation shadows on the Moon exaggerated)Music provided by No Copyright Music:youtube.com/c/royaltyfreemusicMusic used: Traveler by Alexander Nakarada @ SerpentSound Studios soundcloud.com/serpentsoundstudios/traveler-celtic-soundtrackLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0creativecommons.org/licensesImagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
How the Moon orbits Earth Interplanetary 2020-04-17 | Using real data for the month of April 2020 I'm showing the exact rotations, tilts, inclination, orbital velocity, sunlight angles & views of our Earth-Moon system. Earth-Moon distance is not to scale, but Earth and Moon *sizes* are (in the middle row).FAQs/info1. The green caps on the Moon are to indicate the position of the poles2. The green circle around Earth (bottom middle, lol, middle Earth) is just a reference3. The Moon is tilted 1.5° to its orbit around the Sun, so it has virtually no seasons4. When the Moon is close to Earth it's pulled more strongly by Earth's gravity, so it goes faster, but when the Moon is far, it's pulled less and goes slower5. Remember the SUPERMOON the other day? On April 7-8 have a look how there was a full Moon during a time when the Moon was closest to Earth... and you'll know why it looked bigger. A nice coincidence6. Because of the 5.1° inclination and 1.5° axial tilt of the Moon, we actually see ~6.6° beneath and above the Moon's poles during it's orbit, which is why it looks like it wobbles up and down, from our point of viewImagery from: NASA / Solar System Scope processing solarsystemscope.com/textures under CC BY 4.0NASA ephemeris data: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
