Applications

I developed the following applications to show the differences between the planets of our solar system.

	A size comparison of the planets and the sun - The planets can be changed and you can decide if you want to compare them side by side or by an overlay.
	A comparison of the 8 planets, where a comparison criterion can be chosen and the values are shown as bars. (One for each planet.)
	A comparison of the planets in a 2D scatterplot visualizes the values of two selected measures of the eight planets of our solar system.
	A visualization of the orbits of the planets with several interaction possibilities.

Links

Some Astronomy links, which I like very much:

• FAQ of the Voyager Mission
• Wikipedia articles about the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
• Two really great projects that show sizes and distances in our solar system:
  • Planetarium
    Regrettably this project is no longer available. It showed a size comparison of the planets with additional information presented with great animations and cool design.
  • If the moon has the size of a pixel
    A demonstration of the distances in our solar system.
• A visualization of the future astronomic events that concerns mankind, the earth and the solar system.

Why is there an astronomy section?

I like to read books about Astronomy. Every time when I read one, I have ideas how I could demonstrate or visualize topics with the help of small programs or applications. So I created this section to realize those things.

Of course there is no way to create a page about astronomy without pictures from space agencies. So I aim to mention the resources for each image that I use.

The header image shows a size comparison of the planets of the solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). For me this is an interesting topic, so I think it is a good picture for this section. The original image can be found here. It was published on the NASA page about the solar system. As resource the Lunar and Planetary Institute is mentioned.

The background image shows our home galaxy the milky way. The original image is from this page, where a complete overview of the galaxy in high resolution has been created. This means that every bright pixel on this image represents a group of stars, which can be analyzed by zooming into the picture. Impressive. Most impressive!

If you have feedback, ideas for improvement or if you spotted errors, just inform me via email: I am looking forward to read your input and to be able to improve this page.