Planets
Notes
This isn’t just one way to visualize the planets. This is every way to visualize the planets: use the controls to arrange Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune by where they are, how heavy they are, how big they are, how dense they are, how hot they are, or any of a dozen other measures in thousands of combinations
After working my way up through the smallest things in the universe, from elementary particles through mesons, baryons, nuclides and atoms to molecules, this time I’m going big.
This planetary visualization plots mass (the planets further up are heavier) against the distance from the Sun (the planets further right are further from the Sun), with the size of each planet on the screen reflecting its size in reality.
But those aren’t the only planetary properties you can plot.
Create your own plots using the and buttons to select which planetary properties map to the planets’ positions on the x- and y-axes and sizes, respectively.
The positions of the planets are flexible, automatically adjusted to avoid overlaps where possible. If you’d prefer a mathematically precise plot, use the strict scale button.
You can also switch between linear and logarithmic scales and invert the axes.
This is another visualization generated with the Open Web Mind, which is helping me keep my things made thinkable output high.
And just in case you’re wondering where’s Pluto??? – fear not. For the dwarf planet lovers out there, I’m working on a visualization that’ll include many of the smaller objects in the solar system: moons, asteroids, comets and, yes, dwarf planets and minor planets.
Date
First published 2 December 2021