Show HN: Real-time Solar System with 526k asteroids and all tracked satellites

wanick•about 3 hours ago

Author here. It's a browser view of the Solar System at real scale, with its current state, plus the objects around Earth from the CelesTrak catalog.

Data: CelesTrak TLEs (SGP4), asteroids and comets from JPL SBDB, spacecraft positions from JPL Horizons. Updated daily.

Rendering is WebGL2, orbit propagation runs in web workers. The asteroid set (~30 MB) loads in the background.

The time slider runs forwards and backwards; satellites appear and disappear by launch date.

____tom____•42 minutes ago

> It's a browser view of the Solar System at real scale

Is it really? I don't think you could see the satellites, if they weren't drawn at 1000x scale. I am wrong?

At real scale, i would expect to not see anything.

jsphweid•15 minutes ago

I think it's pretty obvious the satellites aren't drawn to scale, given they don't change in size when zooming in/out.

boxed•about 1 hour ago

A way to zoom that is faster than mouse wheel would be nice. Takes forever to zoom out a long way!

Oarch•about 1 hour ago

Being able to zoom on mobile at all would be great. And a way to close all of the overlay panels!

mcv•11 minutes ago

There are way more asteroids near the Earth than I thought.

nephihaha•17 minutes ago

Quite incredible how much manmade crap there is up there, and much of it probably useless, and a potential problem for the satellites which are of use.

nugzbunny•about 1 hour ago

This is amazing. Well done. How long did it take to make?

wanick•10 minutes ago

Thanks! It's a byproduct of another project, so hard to say exactly. A few evenings.

fnordprefect•42 minutes ago

Seconded. Great work.

1shooner•about 1 hour ago

Almost 1 in 3 tracked spacecraft is Starlink, is that accurate?

Sayrus•30 minutes ago

Even more than that. Of the 35k tracked "Satellites and spacecraft", more than 12k are debris bringing Starlink to 1 in 2. If you look only at Active known satellites, around 2 in 3.

From Starlink's page on Wikipedia: "Starlink accounts for approximately 75% of all active maneuverable satellites in Earth orbit"

gus_massa•26 minutes ago

Probably correct. Random link from 2023 (~50%) https://www.springco.co.uk/what-do-satellite-constellations-...

eutropia•about 2 hours ago

What's with those giant blobs of asteroids offset in jupiter's orbit by like 60deg on either side?

dvh•about 2 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_(celestial_body)

einpoklum•about 2 hours ago

Wow, speedy and convenient! Well done!

Some insights:

* There is sooo much space debris! Dead sattelites and rocket bodies

* Starlink put up a hell of lot of satellites, too.

* There is a pretty dense sphere of items around the earth at geo-stationary orbit, a bit like a mantle; but most of all in a circle on that sphere.

dylan604•39 minutes ago

Everyone talks about the ringed planets, but I've never seen Earth mentioned of having a ring. I've also never seen mentioned that the rings were not man made as a qualifier. Yet, there it is, very clearly visible when zoomed out.

One of the things that I noticed was how far away Parker was from the sun. I know it has a crazy orbit, but seeing it at a scale reference just emphasizes how its orbit is complicated.

Also, checking out the platforms around L2. Euclid and JWST are no where near each other which again, just emphasizes how much space there is in...space.

VladDanGeorgesc•about 2 hours ago

Very interesting!

java-man•about 3 hours ago

Super! Not easy to select or center on a planet though.

Musigsal•35 minutes ago

Cope, Earth is flat

jairofdez•about 4 hours ago

great project!!!!

Show HN: Real-time Solar System with 526k asteroids and all tracked satellites

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