How accurate is the solar system model in Orbiter?

[destinos]

from the Mars wikipedia entry: "On August 27, 2003, at 9:51:13 UT, Mars made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years: 55,758,006 km (0.372719 AU)."

If I plug that date into Orbiter, will Mars be in that position? Has anyone checked this out?

 

[the.punk]

I can try it, but you could also try it yourself. This isn't so difficult.

 

[Urwumpe]

If I plug that date into Orbiter, will Mars be in that position? Has anyone checked this out?

Just try it... the ephemeris module for Mars is according to the guarantee, accurate for +/- 5000 years...

 

[destinos]

Yeah, does Target Intercept in IMFD provide a straight-line distance to the target?

 

[ar81]

No trajectory in space is a straight line, unless you are very far from any gravity source.

 

[the.punk]

You could make do a nearly straight line.
But why??

 

[Quick_Nick]

Yeah, does Target Intercept in IMFD provide a straight-line distance to the target?

You should use OrbitMFD and set REF to Mars, if you want the distance to Mars for example.
Remember though that you are not Earth, so there will be some regular change in distance as you rotate around Earth.

 

[destinos]

No trajectory in space is a straight line, unless you are very far from any gravity source.

Yeah, I mean negating the gravity bowing that would happen near the planets.

 

[the.punk]

Yeah, I mean negating the gravity bowing that would happen near the planets.

Do you want to travel near light speed?

 

[destinos]

Do you want to travel near light speed?

I just meant that for purposes of a rough distance measurement between earth and mars, i was prepared to assume uniform dimensions in the solar system's frame. we're talking about dozens of millions of kilometers

 

[Quick_Nick]

I just meant that for purposes of a rough distance measurement between earth and mars, i was prepared to assume uniform dimensions in the solar system's frame. we're talking about dozens of millions of kilometers

Was my post just skipped over? :lol:

 

[Hielor]

I don't know why you guys are talking about trajectories. The original question regarded the close approach of Mars to Earth in straight-line distance, not a trajectory.

 

[destinos]

Was my post just skipped over? :lol:

Course not! All of this is pretty moot anyway as I'm at work right now and may forget to check any of this out by the time i get home!

Along the same lines, has anyone ever seen the moon at a certain point in the sky on a certain date and time, and then plugged that into Orbiter to see if the heading matches?

 

[ar81]

Yeah, I mean negating the gravity bowing that would happen near the planets.

And the space between Earth and Mars is exactly space between planets, and also it is within sun SOI. So you will never get a straight line. Even close to speed of light it will make a very slight curve.

 

[pattersoncr]

And the space between Earth and Mars is exactly space between planets, and also it is within sun SOI. So you will never get a straight line. Even close to speed of light it will make a very slight curve.

ahem...

I don't know why you guys are talking about trajectories. The original question regarded the close approach of Mars to Earth in straight-line distance, not a trajectory.

 

[destinos]

So I did attempt this at home yesterday but I ran into a problem with the OrbitMFD. I couldn't seem to set the target to Mars, either by typing Mars manually or selecting it from the list. I did have the ref set to the Sun, so I'm not sure what the problem was. Does it take a while to populate the MFD with data, when the target is distant? Maybe it crashed it?

 

[Chode]

from the Mars wikipedia entry: "On August 27, 2003, at 9:51:13 UT, Mars made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years: 55,758,006 km (0.372719 AU)."

If I plug that date into Orbiter, will Mars be in that position? Has anyone checked this out?

Orbiter's ephemeris for Earth and Mars gives an accuracy of a few hundred km. for the distance between the two. Consider it "checked out" . Same for Earth-Moon.

Reason: extensive comparison of Orbiter positions with JPL Horizons data on positions of Earth, Mars, and Moon.

Regards

 

[Usquanigo]

Regarding such accuracy, tonight when I was taking the trash out, I noticed the moon, very bright in the sky, and slightly up and to the left of it was a VERY bright spot. I suspected it was a planet. So I got an idea, I loaded up Orbiter, selected KSC (I'm east coast US, so that's good enough), and selected the current date and time in the scenario editor.

The time was correct, and it was night out, but there was no moon. I zoomed out far enough to look around and it was on the other side of the planet...... Does anybody know why that would be? Is it possible to correcty (essentially calibrate it)?

 

[tblaxland]

Does anybody know why that would be?

I don't know. I've just tried it now, set the date to 01/09/09 02:00 UTC (31/08/09 22:00 EDT) and it looks just like your real life observation. It matches Stellarium too. The planet was Jupiter, BTW.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Time zone miscalculation? Be sure you pressed the 'now' button.