Planets around the Sun
Discussion
Hi all..is there a website that shows the path of the planets around the Sun in 3D, where you can zoom in/ out and do time travel to see changes in 1 year, 100 years, 1 million years etc...
I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
dkatwa said:
Hi all..is there a website that shows the path of the planets around the Sun in 3D, where you can zoom in/ out and do time travel to see changes in 1 year, 100 years, 1 million years etc...
I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
None of the planets' orbits are perfect circles. They are all elliptical to some extent. Some are more elliptical than others.I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
All of the planets lie roughly in the same plane - which is more or less in line with the sun's equator and is referred to as the plane of the ecliptic. The planets don't lie absolutely on this plane but they are pretty close. That's why you will only ever see planets in a distinct band in the sky, which is referred to as the Zodiac.
dkatwa said:
Hi all..is there a website that shows the path of the planets around the Sun in 3D, where you can zoom in/ out and do time travel to see changes in 1 year, 100 years, 1 million years etc...
I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
Have a look here http://www.brightonastronomy.com/solarsystem.html the Heliocentric view gives a 3D view I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
This is probably better for that elliptical orbit
This shows Kepler's law http://astro.unl.edu/naap/pos/animations/kepler.sw...
There are quite a few simulators on the web as the astronomy community both academic and amateur are a friendly bunch and you can dive down the rabbit hole as far as your interest takes you.
If you are ever in the Kielder Forst area http://www.visitkielder.com/visit/kielder-observat... is always worth a visit but you do have to book in advance.
Have fun
Is there a site that shows how the Earth's surface moves over millions of years, whether in the past or forward?
My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger, but when they died, they would sink to the surface of the ocean...
so, if we look at how the continents moved over the last 65m years, there would be land now that was previously under water, potentially containing the bones of those sea dinosaurs
Anyway, it would be nice to see how the continents have/ would move over the next 65 million years..or whatever timescale
Happy New Year!
My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger, but when they died, they would sink to the surface of the ocean...
so, if we look at how the continents moved over the last 65m years, there would be land now that was previously under water, potentially containing the bones of those sea dinosaurs
Anyway, it would be nice to see how the continents have/ would move over the next 65 million years..or whatever timescale
Happy New Year!
Is there a site that shows how the Earth's surface moves over millions of years, whether in the past or forward?
My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger, but when they died, they would sink to the surface of the ocean...
so, if we look at how the continents moved over the last 65m years, there would be land now that was previously under water, potentially containing the bones of those sea dinosaurs
Anyway, it would be nice to see how the continents have/ would move over the next 65 million years..or whatever timescale
Happy New Year!
My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger, but when they died, they would sink to the surface of the ocean...
so, if we look at how the continents moved over the last 65m years, there would be land now that was previously under water, potentially containing the bones of those sea dinosaurs
Anyway, it would be nice to see how the continents have/ would move over the next 65 million years..or whatever timescale
Happy New Year!
dkatwa said:
Is there a site that shows how the Earth's surface moves over millions of years, whether in the past or forward?
My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger, but when they died, they would sink to the surface of the ocean...
so, if we look at how the continents moved over the last 65m years, there would be land now that was previously under water, potentially containing the bones of those sea dinosaurs
Anyway, it would be nice to see how the continents have/ would move over the next 65 million years..or whatever timescale
Happy New Year!
Not sure about such a site. I'm sure there's one out there.My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger, but when they died, they would sink to the surface of the ocean...
so, if we look at how the continents moved over the last 65m years, there would be land now that was previously under water, potentially containing the bones of those sea dinosaurs
Anyway, it would be nice to see how the continents have/ would move over the next 65 million years..or whatever timescale
Happy New Year!
Regarding your theory of finding the fossils of sea going reptiles, the problem is that it is the action of the sea floors spreading that pushes the continents about the planet. The sea floors spread because new floor emerging along mid ocean ridges, The sea floor then moves away from these ridges and eventually dives below the continental shelves. As the sea floor descends under the continental shelf, it is heated up and melted - and merged back into the mantle. This effectively destroys any fossil record that night have been preserved in sea floor rocks.
As a result of all this, it is often difficult to find fossils of deep ocean, large, extinct sea creatures.
So far, we haven't found a marine reptile fossil that challenges the Blue Whale for sheer size. But you never know.
dkatwa said:
My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger,
It's possible, but there is not one iota of evidence to support this. I note you don't say "I think it's possible there were...." but you actually say "I think there were...". Given that the blue whale is 3 times the size of the largest known dinosaur (180 tn compared to 60 tn), it is extremely unlikely that there was one species of dinosaur that was say 200tn, and the next biggest was so much smaller. The blue whale isn't the only whale, there are many different sorts of whale varying sizes culminating in the blue whale being the largest.
What has led you to this conclusion?
The theory is plausible - plenty of plesiosaurs have been found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesiosauria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesiosauria
Simpo Two said:
The theory is plausible - plenty of plesiosaurs have been found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesiosauria
The largest of which, found to date, is about half the size of a blue whale. It is certainly not impossible that animals larger than the blue have existed, but we have no evidence that they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plesiosauria
For the reasons I mentioned above, finding fossil evidence for large, deep water creatures is difficult because the environment in which they would have been fossilised is so unstable over geological time. On the other hand, large land dwelling creatures have a better chance of surviving in a fossilised state for hundreds of millions of years because the beds in which they lay would not have been subject to subduction.
There could very well have been very, very large marine reptiles as creatures of that type flourished in the oceans for over 200 million years. However, we haven't found anything as big as a Blue Whale yet - and probably never will.
By the way, the large sea going reptiles - such as the plesiosaurs, ichtysaurs, mosasaurs etc were not dinosaurs - although they were probably distantly related.
There could very well have been very, very large marine reptiles as creatures of that type flourished in the oceans for over 200 million years. However, we haven't found anything as big as a Blue Whale yet - and probably never will.
By the way, the large sea going reptiles - such as the plesiosaurs, ichtysaurs, mosasaurs etc were not dinosaurs - although they were probably distantly related.
To the OP, this video shows the Solar System, reconstructed to scale.
Brought home to me the enormous achievement of getting probes so far, and so accurately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg
John
Brought home to me the enormous achievement of getting probes so far, and so accurately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg
John
TwigtheWonderkid said:
dkatwa said:
My thinking is that the Blue whale is not the biggest animal to have ever lived...I think there were sea- borne dinosaurs much bigger,
It's possible, but there is not one iota of evidence to support this. I note you don't say "I think it's possible there were...." but you actually say "I think there were...". Given that the blue whale is 3 times the size of the largest known dinosaur (180 tn compared to 60 tn), it is extremely unlikely that there was one species of dinosaur that was say 200tn, and the next biggest was so much smaller. The blue whale isn't the only whale, there are many different sorts of whale varying sizes culminating in the blue whale being the largest.
What has led you to this conclusion?
I was merely trying to say that everything 65m years ago was huge so why couldn't there be huge creatures in the sea, bigger than the blue whale?
As has been mentioned on this topic, the plates constantly change but what I would like to see is a map of the Earth where I can go back in time 65m years and see how the plates have moved since then...land now, that was in the sea 65m years ago, would be a good place to start looking for said huge sea dinosaurs...or whatever they are called :-)
Simple video and explanation here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ppyGg3vRs8
Note that ocean floors do not generally become dry land. The oceans, by and large, have remained oceans and the sea beds have remained sea beds. Therefore, sea animals that died and sank to the ocean depths will, on the whole, not become fossils that we will find now on dry land - even hundreds of millions of years later.
On occasion, sections of ocean floor DO get pushed up into mountain ranges - especially where two of the plates are colliding and ramming together - pushing up what had been ocean floor between the plate margins. This is what is happening in the Himalayas and the Atlas Mountains in North Africa - so fossilised sea creatures can be found in such rocks.
Also, closer to home, the "Jurassic Coast" of Devon and Dorset is largely made of of marine deposits - although these deposits formed at the bottom of a shallow sea during the Jurassic period around 150 million years ago. As a result, although there are lots of fossilised shellfish and other marine animals present in abundance in these rocks, even quite big ones, such as Ichthyosaurs, they tend to be animals that would have inhabited shallow sea waters rather than the deep oceans.
There is a paucity of deep ocean dwelling fossils because of the subduction of ocean floor material - as mentioned by me above and shown in the video. Therefore, as I have also said, the evidence for extremely large sea going marine reptiles is always going to be hard to find.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ppyGg3vRs8
Note that ocean floors do not generally become dry land. The oceans, by and large, have remained oceans and the sea beds have remained sea beds. Therefore, sea animals that died and sank to the ocean depths will, on the whole, not become fossils that we will find now on dry land - even hundreds of millions of years later.
On occasion, sections of ocean floor DO get pushed up into mountain ranges - especially where two of the plates are colliding and ramming together - pushing up what had been ocean floor between the plate margins. This is what is happening in the Himalayas and the Atlas Mountains in North Africa - so fossilised sea creatures can be found in such rocks.
Also, closer to home, the "Jurassic Coast" of Devon and Dorset is largely made of of marine deposits - although these deposits formed at the bottom of a shallow sea during the Jurassic period around 150 million years ago. As a result, although there are lots of fossilised shellfish and other marine animals present in abundance in these rocks, even quite big ones, such as Ichthyosaurs, they tend to be animals that would have inhabited shallow sea waters rather than the deep oceans.
There is a paucity of deep ocean dwelling fossils because of the subduction of ocean floor material - as mentioned by me above and shown in the video. Therefore, as I have also said, the evidence for extremely large sea going marine reptiles is always going to be hard to find.
Eric Mc said:
dkatwa said:
Hi all..is there a website that shows the path of the planets around the Sun in 3D, where you can zoom in/ out and do time travel to see changes in 1 year, 100 years, 1 million years etc...
I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
None of the planets' orbits are perfect circles. They are all elliptical to some extent. Some are more elliptical than others.I gather the Earth does not go around the sun in a circle and the planets are constantly moving in orbits in different planes to the earth...
All of the planets lie roughly in the same plane - which is more or less in line with the sun's equator and is referred to as the plane of the ecliptic. The planets don't lie absolutely on this plane but they are pretty close. That's why you will only ever see planets in a distinct band in the sky, which is referred to as the Zodiac.
The OP may find these links interesting:
Firstly, something about how planets orbit in ellipses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_p...
Secondly, something about the variation in orbital inclination that Eric mentions above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_inclination
Incidentally, something the OP may find interesting is that the earth's elliptical orbit means that we're closest to the sun on January the 3rd (~147 million km) and furthest from the sun on July the 4th (~152 million km). More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perihelion_and_aphel...
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