Extremely Cool Astronomy News

[Pax]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
That makes sense slick, but it still looks wrong to me. Shouldn't the planets be side to side instead of top to bottom? I thought maybe the image was sideways, but then the shadow on earth would be wrong and the cloud bands on jupiter too.

Geoschmo

Contrary to popular misconception, not EVERY planet's orbit lies in the exact same plane; there are angular differences between each (and it tends to follow a pattern, IIRC ... the inner planets further and further off of the plane of, say, Neptune's orbit).

As to their placement, I would suspect the following:

code:

---

.    J

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.                              S

.

.                E

.

.          ^

.          |

.          |

.          |

.          M

---

(The arrow denotes the direction of the camera; the periods are only to maintain vertical spacing)

Mainly due to the differences in what's "lit up" and what'snot; Earth is in almost peerfect profile, turned JUST a little away form the camera -- so the Sun should be not-quite directly to the right of the Earth, in terms of direction.

However, Jupiter is almost face-on to us; that means the angle from the camera to the sun, relative to Jupiter, mustn't be all THAT large.



[ May 23, 2003, 19:44: Message edited by: Pax ]