The Solar System Simulator was done as my computer simulation
project
work.Let me explain in a
bit detail about the simulator .Firstly the planets and their orbits are
not drawn on scale.If I had
done likewise it would have lost much of it demonstrative appeal
to most of you out there. The data on which this works is
based on the dates at which the
planets are at their perehelion
( That is position closest to the sun).This data I had taken from
the Nasa website.
Once this data is obtained ,then to show the position of the planet at
a particular date you just have to calculate the difference between the
date selected and the date at perehelion.This will give the days elapsed
since perehelion. Multiply this with the planets
mean angular rotation period (ie
the degree rotated per day) and it gives the mean anomaly M.
From this the position of the planet
can be easily calculated.
