Planetary orbits in our solar system in 50,000+ years

[Shadowcross]

First of all, great work Chris.

I played around a bit with the timescale, and I came across something which surprised me... The orbits of our well known planets in the solar system seem to be changing quite much, especially Saturn and Earth.

I was wondering if this was "just" a result of the formulas used to calculate the orbits or if this is really going to change that much.

In about 50,000 years Earth's orbit will cross with the orbit of Venus and Mars!

Take a look at this pic please:





Greetings,
ShadowCross

[Matt McIrvin]

I played around a bit with the timescale, and I came across something which surprised me... The orbits of our well known planets in the solar system seem to be changing quite much, especially Saturn and Earth.

I was wondering if this was "just" a result of the formulas used to calculate the orbits or if this is really going to change that much.

It isn't real. Celestia models the orbits of the planets with an approximation that is considerably more accurate than a simple ellipse for times close to the present, but breaks down over longer time scales.

[Mikeydude750]

Exactly. Also, can people stop bring this to attention. This problem has been shown many times, and everyone knows. Stop creating new topics to address an old problem.

[temporalillusion]

It's still fun to get some interesting orbits:

[Mikeydude750]

I must agree with you on that. I was the first person to report this problem, and I was out looking for bugs. Once I found this one, I was addicted. Unfortunately, the newer versions don't display incorrect orbit lines, but they still have the bug.

[Guest]

Mikeydude, my sincere apologies for wasting your time with a topic you mentioned already over two months ago.

I guess it was pretty stupid of me not to read all 3 pages of topics in all 3 forums this messageboard has got.

/sarcasm off

And Matt, thanks for your polite answer.


ShadowCross