Visualization of Solar System with Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality with A-frame
author: Paulo Henrique Siqueira - Universidade Federal do Paraná
contact: paulohscwb@gmail.com
versão em português
The planets of Solar System can be viewed in AR with the indicated markers, and through the links created on the markers, the planets can be seen in VR. To make the RV and RA programmed environment closer to reality, we included orbital and rotational periods of each planet, the inclinations of orbits, and the distances aphelion and perihelion relative to Sun.
Immersive room
3D models
Solar System
Solar System with dwarf planets
Our planetary system is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity — the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, dwarf planets such as Pluto, dozens of moons and millions of asteroids, comets and meteoroids. Beyond our own solar system, we have discovered thousands of planetary systems orbiting other stars in the Milky Way (NASA, 2019). More...
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Solar System without dwarf planets
The order and arrangement of the planets and other bodies in our solar system is due to the way the solar system formed. Nearest the Sun, only rocky material could withstand the heat when the solar system was young. For this reason, the first four planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—are terrestrial planets. They're small with solid, rocky surfaces. Meanwhile, materials we are used to seeing as ice, liquid or gas settled in the outer regions of the young solar system. Gravity pulled these materials together, and that is where we find gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and ice giants Uranus and Neptune. More...
The Solar System without dwarf planets Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea and Eris can be seen in the RV link.
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Planets
1. Mercury
The smallest planet in our solar system and nearest to the Sun, Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's Moon. From the surface of Mercury, the Sun would appear more than three times as large as it does when viewed from Earth, and the sunlight would be as much as seven times brighter. Despite its proximity to the Sun, Mercury is not the hottest planet in our solar system – that title belongs to nearby Venus, thanks to its dense atmosphere.
Day: 59 Earth days | Year: 88 Earth days | Radius: 2,439.7 kilometers | Planet Type: Terrestrial | Moons: 0 | More...
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2. Venus
Second planet from the Sun and our closest planetary neighbor, Venus is similar in structure and size to Earth, but it is now a very different world. Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction most planets do. Its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in our solar system—with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Glimpses below the clouds reveal volcanoes and deformed mountains.
Day: 243 Earth days | Year: 225 Earth days | Radius: 6,052 kilometers | Planet Type: Terrestrial | Moons: 0 | More...
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3. Earth
Our home planet is the third planet from the Sun, and the only place we know of so far that’s inhabited by living things. While Earth is only the fifth largest planet in the solar system, it is the only world in our solar system with liquid water on the surface. Just slightly larger than nearby Venus, Earth is the biggest of the four planets closest to the Sun, all of which are made of rock and metal. The name Earth is at least 1,000 years old. All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. However, the name Earth is a Germanic word, which simply means “the ground.”
Day: 23.9 hours | Year: 365.25 days | Radius: 6,371 kilometers | Planet Type: Terrestrial | Moons: 1 | More...
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4. Mars
The fourth planet from the Sun, Mars is a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. This dynamic planet has seasons, polar ice caps and weather and canyons and extinct volacanoes, evidence of an even more active past.Mars is one of the most explored bodies in our solar system, and it's the only planet where we've sent rovers to roam the alien landscape. NASA currently has three spacecraft in orbit, one rover and one lander on the surface and another rover under construction here on Earth. India and ESA also have spacecraft in orbit above Mars. These robotic explorers have found lots of evidence that Mars was much wetter and warmer, with a thicker atmosphere, billions of years ago.
Day: 24.6 hours | Year: 687 Earth days | Radius: 3,390 kilometers | Planet Type: Terrestrial | Moons: 2 | More...
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5. Jupiter
Jupiter has a long history surprising scientists—all the way back to 1610 when Galileo Galilei found the first moons beyond Earth. That discovery changed the way we see the universe. Fifth in line from the Sun, Jupiter is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Jupiter's familiar stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has raged for hundreds of years.
Day: 9.92496 Hours | Year: 4,333 Earth days | Radius: 69,911 kilometers | Planet Type: Gas giant | Moons: 79 | More...
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6. Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in our solar system. Adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets, Saturn is unique among the planets. It is not the only planet to have rings—made of chunks of ice and rock—but none are as spectacular or as complicated as Saturn's. Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium.
Day: 10.7 hours | Year: 29 Earth years | Radius: 58,232 kilometers | Planet Type: Gas giant | Moons: 53 | More...
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7. Uranus
The first planet found with the aid of a telescope, Uranus was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel, although he originally thought it was either a comet or a star. It was two years later that the object was universally accepted as a new planet, in part because of observations by astronomer Johann Elert Bode. Herschel tried unsuccessfully to name his discovery Georgium Sidus after King George III. Instead the planet was named for Uranus, the Greek god of the sky, as suggested by Johann Bode.
Day: 17 hours and 14 minutes | Year: 84 Earth years | Radius: 25,362 kilometers | Planet Type: Ice giant | Moons: 27 | More...
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8. Neptune
Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye and the first predicted by mathematics before its discovery. In 2011 Neptune completed its first 165-year orbit since its discovery in 1846. NASA's Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune up close. It flew past in 1989 on its way out of the solar system.
Day: 16 hours | Year: 165 Earth years | Radius: 24,622 kilometers | Planet Type: Ice giant | Moons: 13 | More...
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Dwarf Planets
1. Pluto
Pluto—which is smaller than Earth’s Moon—has a heart-shaped glacier that’s the size of Texas and Oklahoma. This fascinating world has blue skies, spinning moons, mountains as high as the Rockies, and it snows—but the snow is red. “The complexity of the Pluto system — from its geology to its satellite system to its atmosphere— has been beyond our wildest imagination,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Everywhere we turn are new mysteries."
Day: 153 hours | Year: 248 Earth years | Radius: 1,151 kilometers | Planet Type: Dwarf | Moons: 5 | More...
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2. Ceres
Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. And when Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft. Called an asteroid for many years, Ceres is so much bigger and so different from its rocky neighbors that scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. Even though Ceres comprises 25 percent of the asteroid belt's total mass, tiny Pluto is still 14 times more massive. Ceres is named for the Roman goddess of corn and harvests. The word cereal comes from the same name.
Day: 9 hours | Year: 1,682 Earth days | Radius: 476 kilometers | Planet Type: Dwarf | Moons: 0 | More...
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3. Makemake
Along with fellow dwarf planets Pluto, Eris and Haumea, Makemake is located in the Kuiper Belt, a region outside the orbit of Neptune. Slightly smaller than Pluto, Makemake is the second-brightest object in the Kuiper Belt as seen from Earth (while Pluto is the brightest). It takes about 305 Earth years for this dwarf planet to make one trip around the sun. Makemake holds an important place in the history of solar system studies because it—along with Eris—was one of the objects whose discovery prompted the International Astronomical Union to reconsider the definition of a planet and to create the new group of dwarf planets.Makemake was named after the Rapanui god of fertility.
Day: 2.5 hours | Year: 305.34 Earth years | Radius: 715 kilometers | Planet Type: Dwarf | Moons: 0 | More...
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4. Haumea
Originally designated 2003 EL61 (and nicknamed Santa by one discovery team), Haumea resides in the Kuiper belt and is roughly the same size as Pluto. Haumea is one of the fastest rotating large objects in our solar system. Its fast spin distorts Haumea's shape, making this dwarf planet look like a football.Two teams claim credit for discovering of Haumea citing evidence from observations made in 2003 and 2004. The International Astronomical Union’s Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature lists the discovery location as Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain on Mar. 7, 2003, but no official discoverer is listed. Haumea was named after the Hawaiian goddess of fertility.
Day: 4 hours | Year: 285 Earth years | Radius: 620 kilometers | Planet Type: Dwarf | Moons: 2 | More...
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5. Eris
Eris is one of the largest known dwarf planets in our solar system. It's about the same size as Pluto, but is three times farther from the Sun. Eris first appeared to be larger than Pluto. This triggered a debate in the scientific community that led to the International Astronomical Union's decision in 2006 to clarify the definition of a planet. Pluto, Eris and other similar objects are now classified as dwarf planets. Originally designated 2003 UB313 (and nicknamed for the television warrior Xena by its discovery team), Eris is named for the ancient Greek goddess of discord and strife. The name fits since Eris remains at the center of a scientific debate about the definition of a planet. Eris was discovered on Oct. 21, 2003 by M.E. Brown, C.A. Trujillo, and D. Rabinowitz at the Palomar Observatory.
Day: 25.9 hours | Year: 557 Earth years | Radius: 1,163 kilometers | Planet Type: Dwarf | Moons: 1 | More...
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The Sun
The Sun—the heart of our solar system—is a yellow dwarf star, a hot ball of glowing gases. Its gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything from the biggest planets to the smallest particles of debris in its orbit. Electric currents in the Sun generate a magnetic field that is carried out through the solar system by the solar wind—a stream of electrically charged gas blowing outward from the Sun in all directions. The connection and interactions between the Sun and Earth drive the seasons, ocean currents, weather, climate, radiation belts and aurorae. Though it is special to us, there are billions of stars like our Sun scattered across the Milky Way galaxy.
Distance from Earth: 149.60 million kilometers or 1 astronomical unit | Radius: 695,508 kilometers | Star Type: Yellow dwarf | More...
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Augmented Reality
The AR environment was created with the Jerome Etienne scripts: AR.js - Augmented Reality for the Web.
The orbit scripts developed by Kevin Ngo were used on the VR pages: Orbit controls for A-Frame.
All information about the solar system was taken from NASA website: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/.
The objective of this project is to show the planets in RA and RV with A-frame technology.
The textures of the planets were used from Solar System Scope site: Solar Textures.
To view the Solar System in AR, simply visit
https://paulohscwb.github.io/solar-system/solar.html
with any browser with a webcam device (smartphone, tablet or notebook).
Access to the VR sites is done by clicking on the blue circle that appears on top of the marker.
Solar System by Paulo Henrique Siqueira is licensed with a license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
How to cite this work:
Siqueira, P.H., "Solar System". Available in: <https://paulohscwb.github.io/solar-system/>, September 2019.