This applet represents the solar system, including the four major moons of Jupiter and our own, and a couple of comets.
The On/Off button starts and stops the applet.
Because of differences of scale, the inner planets (Mercury - Mars) and the outer planets (Jupiter - Pluto) are on separate screens. To switch to and from the latter, press the In/Out button. To see/hide the orbits, use the Orbit button. The "+" and "-" buttons allow you to resize the display to convenient dimensions.
For a little more excitement, pressing the Ship button will toggle the appearance of a pesky space ship.
The planets, their orbits, and their velocities are approximately in scale with each other, but the planet scale is much larger than than the orbit scale, and the sun is not in scale with either.
Thanks to Luis Fernandes for his orbit suggestion!
The 2000 update modernizes the Java code without changing the operation of the applet.
Eric Gans /
gans@humnet.ucla.edu
Text last updated 11/17/98
Applet last updated 6/22/00