PV Gap

Debbie Said:

I'm searching for a good program to show the planetary orbits in the Solar System?

We Answered:

If you want to see things from Earth's surface perspective, then I recommend Stellarium. http://www.stellarium.org/

If you want to see from any other position, then I recommend Celestia. http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Both are distributed under open source licences, so you're free to download and install the binaries as well as the source code for personal study and modification. Binaries exist typically for all three major operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Linux) and they can be downloaded and installed and copied free of charge. You can also pass it on both to your friends as long as
- they also receive a copy of the license text which always comes with the program (it's part of the terms of most open source licenses),
- the original authors are named,
- any modification you do on the source code is signaled properly (so it can be told from the original)
- if you distribute modified versions of the binary from the source code, you must also provide your source code modifications with the binary.

Edith Said:

Are the planet of solar system orbits co-planar ?

We Answered:

Nope!
We consider Earth orbit "horizontal" (0 deg), here are the others:
Mercury:7.0,
Venus: 3.4
Earth: 0.0
Mars: 1.9
Jupiter: 1.3
Saturn: 2.5
Uranus: 0.8
Neptune: 1.8
Pluto:17.2 (sorry, Pluto is not anymore)
They are "more or less" in the same plane. The variations can come from slight disturbances during the formation of planets and/or past impacts from outer objects.

Cody Said:

Is there a name for the plane on which the solar system orbits in the Milky Way?

We Answered:

The terminology defining the plane of the Milky Way is "The galactic coordinate system". This system is described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_pl… . The Sun (along with the Earth) orbits the galaxy in an elliptical orbit with a period of 225-250 million years. As it orbits its travel path also "oscillates up and down relative to the galactic plane approximately 2.7 times per orbit." These oscillations carry the Sun Above and then below the galactic plane. You can read more on this movement in the "Sun's location and neighborhood" section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way_G… .

Mike Said:

If our solar system orbits around the galaxy then does our point of view change of the stars?

We Answered:

Our point of view does change slightly over millions of years, though bear in mind the rest of the Milky Way is likewise rotating. Certainly within the lifetime of a person there is hardly any discernible change in the locations of stars, and in fact, very little has changed for the whole period man has been on Earth. If we could travel a quarter of the way round the Galaxy, constellations would be totally different. They are purely accidents of line-of-sight, and have no astronomical significance apart from being useful for navigation.

Ian Said:

Describe an object n the solar system that orbits and is orbited?

We Answered:

Any planet with a moon.

Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Etc

Google the planet of your choice. If it has a moon, it fits.