Back to photostream

The History of Asteroid Discovery: 1801-1900

This image visualizes the discovery of asteroids from 1801 to 1900. The Solar System is shown in a logarithmic scale to allow both the main asteroid belt and Kuiper objects to be shown. Asteroids are shown in the position of their perihelion. This makes it easier to separate the various families.

 

I also plotted the histogram of how many minor planets were discovered each year, the semi-major axis, and excentricity on the right panels. The left panels show the excentricity and inclination as a function of semi-major axis, this is again to show how the various asteroid families were defined based on their orbits.

 

Data source: www.minorplanetcenter.net/

 

Youtube visualization: youtu.be/QOdrRX-IScc

1,687 views
0 faves
0 comments
Uploaded on January 28, 2021