12

Pretty simple question; what software is used on Wikipedia to make these simulations? Some examples below:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Paŭlo Ebermann
  • 107
  • 4
hi-bye125
  • 374
  • 13
  • Not a duplicate, but related https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/59931/which-programs-are-used-to-calculate-delta-v-and-launch-dates-to-get-to-other-ob – The Rocket fan Dec 27 '23 at 15:46
  • 7
    Wikipedia is a community maintained online encyclopedia. The content that you see on Wikipedia was created by millions of different people. If you have a question about how a particular animated GIF was created there will normally be a source reference showing who created it or where it came from, although that in itself will likely not tell you what software they used. If you want someone here to comment on it you need to provide a link to the Wikipedia page that you are looking at. – Steve Pemberton Dec 27 '23 at 15:47
  • @StevePemberton I’d have to disagree with you on that. While I agree that Wikipedia is community maintained, these GIFs are fairly consistent across pages. They seem to be derived from SPK Data, but nothing about the software. Anyway, links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist#/media/File:Animation_of_Voyager_1_trajectory.gif – hi-bye125 Dec 27 '23 at 15:52
  • 6
    hi-bye125 - I'm not trying to get into semantics or say that your question isn't valid, in fact it's an interesting question. I'm just pointing out that it has nothing to do with Wikipedia. No more than if you saw a photo that someone uploaded onto Wikipedia and wondered what type of lens was used. – Steve Pemberton Dec 27 '23 at 16:32
  • 5
    There appears to be a single wikipedia user responsibe for both of those images, Phoenix7777. It looks like it's something generated by one of the tools at the Nasa Horizons data and possibly one of the tools at NASA;s Solar System dynamics page, ssd.jpl.nasa.gov , but am unsure which was used, or how the animations were generated. – notovny Dec 27 '23 at 18:28
  • One way you could do it, is use JPL Horizons to generate the data, then use any programming language to graph each individual frame, and then FFMPEG to stitch them all together. – Greg Miller Dec 27 '23 at 19:03
  • I’m voting to close this question because the only person who can answer it is the Wikipedia user who uploaded the images, and it is unlikely they will read the question here. – Jörg W Mittag Dec 27 '23 at 19:09
  • 5
    Phoenix7777 has been repeatedly asked this question on their talk page to no avail as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Phoenix7777#Orbital_Visualization_Software – Erin Anne Dec 28 '23 at 02:07
  • 4
    Whoops, also meant to say: I disagree with the close voters. The question is well-posed, on-topic (though I admit I'm not fond of a lot of the software-specific questions here, we've decided they're on topic) and seems unlikely to attract low-quality answers. Closing it just means we won't get a good answer if someone has one. – Erin Anne Dec 28 '23 at 02:09
  • https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/ can do simple 3D orbit plots of minor bodies (and nearby planets), but they warn that they are just simple 1-body calculations, with no other gravitational interactions. – PM 2Ring Dec 28 '23 at 12:52
  • I have a Sage/Python script that does 3D orbit plots of multiple bodies using Horizons, but they aren't animated. https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/49823/16685 – PM 2Ring Dec 28 '23 at 12:55

1 Answers1

24

Found it (though for a different image from the same user--but it's almost certainly still the answer)! from Phoenix7777's Wikimedia commons page:

I wrote the program.

There's also the note (because of the request to add Plutonian moon Hydra to the visualization) that, at least as of January 2019, that program was limited to visualizing five bodies and a spacecraft.

Based on the rest of that page, they do a significant amount of other data visualization and mapping as well.

Erin Anne
  • 11,202
  • 1
  • 40
  • 76