A friend showed this to me this morning, and I thought it was worth sharing. It *could* have gone under interesting space-related news, but it's not really news, and it also *could* have gone under "fun stuff on YouTube today", but it's not exactly fun, either.
Anyway, someone has put together this animation of our solar system over the last 30 years, during which several thousands of near-Earth asteroids have been discovered. As the animation gets to the period of time in which an object was discovered, the asteroid appears in the animation briefly in white, then fades to one of three colors. Green asteroids are not going to strike Earth, primarily orbiting within the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Yellow asteroids are "Earth Approachers" whose perihelion is less than 1.4 AU at a minimum. Red asteroids are "Earth Crossers" whose orbits cross through that of Earth's own.
The animation is obviously NOT to scale, but it's interesting nonetheless, and more than a little disconcerting.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Not to scale regarding the sizes of the planets and NEOs, but to scale with the distances.
It is quite awesome.
Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
That is pretty awesome. I love the build up. At the end it looks like the eye of a hurricane.
Posted by Ryoko (Member # 4947) on :