Where is Rosetta? Interactive model of the Solar System | Hacker News Reader

Where is Rosetta? Interactive model of the Solar System

util1.estec.esa.int

39 pointsColinWright10 comments

It's over 800 million km away, it's just over 8 million km from the comet and closing. I counted four gravitational assists to get it there.

Close approach in May, landing in August.

Started nearly 10 years ago.

Amazing.

Yes! I noticed (visually) how close Rosetta came to Earth a few times. I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist but didn't get a sense for how close a spacecraft may get to a planet (other than not so close as to interact with the atmosphere).

The gravity assists (and more) are detailed here: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rose...

On 2005-03-04 or so it was between 300 and 14,000 km. For comparison, the Moon varies between 360,000 and 420,000 km.

That's after a year in flight.

On 2007-11-14 it was about 110,000 km from Earth, less than 1/3 of the distance of the Moon.

On 2009-11-13 it was 275,000 km.

These are over-estimates, but broadly right.

As someone who has enough trouble setting up proper orbits in Kerbal Space Program, it's astounding to me the whole process of multiple gravity assists to get the probe to the right place at the right time at the right velocity.

Also, a little disappointed (though understanding) that the JS is obfuscated (https://util1.estec.esa.int/rosetta/where_is_rosetta/js/tecf...). I was hoping to be able to pull it apart and see how it's visualizing the orbits in three.js.

Check this out: http://www.asterank.com/3d

I'm pretty sure the creator of asterank is on HN.

For what it's worth, I think the OP JS is obfuscated/minified for load times; not for self-interested reasons.

He is: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=typpo

I like the idea, but it’s not a very clear presentation. It starts at the launching time, press “Where is Rosetta today?” to advance to the actual position and see the orbit. I couldn’t zoom or move sideward.

On the other hand, the trajectory is more complicated than I thought. Almost incredible.

You can grab the image and rotate it around - viewing side on is interesting. You can click "Play" and watch it run forward from launch to landing.

Scroll wheel will zoom, or hold down "s" and drag. Right-drag will pan.

What more would you like?

I didn’t see the “help” button. I’m using a slow netbook. There is no mousewheel and the keys+moupad are very difficult to use, mostly because the micro is at 100% and I have to wait like a seconds until the image moves.

I tested it now in my desktop pc. It works much better, and I can use a real mouse. But the micro is at 70%. You can try to look how this page looks when you set the affinity of the browser to only one or two cores.

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