The Complete Solar System

The simulation fullsystem.gsim includes all nine planets and every known moon in the solar system as of January 2005. It also includes the major asteroids, and several Earth crossing asteroids, including Toutatis and "Earth's 2nd Moon", Cruthine. The simulation also contains some noteworthy Trans-Neptunian Objects such as the recently discovered Sedna. Several spacecraft are also included, such as the Cassini orbiter, the Huygens lander, the Voyager spacecraft, the Pioneer spacecraft, the Mercury Messanger, the Spitzer space telescope, the Rosetta spacecraft and the Genesis spacecraft. This simulation begins on January 1, 2005. The initial starting conditions were obtained by JPL's Horizons Ephemeris Computation Service. In this simulation, you can:
  • Focus on Saturn, and watch the Cassini and Huygens probe travel to Titan.

  • Watch as Saturn's moons, Janus and Epimetheus trade orbits every 7 years.

  • Set time backwards and watch the Asteroid Toutatis cruises past Earth in September 2004.

  • Watch the Mercury Messanger spacecraft depart Earth's vicinity. If you run time backwards, you can watch Messanger return to Earth too.

  • Watch the Genesis spacecraft return to Earth.

  • Watch the ESA's Rosetta spacecraft approach Earth for a gravity assist in March 2005.

This simulation is very large. Rather than run this simulation as-is, you may find it more convienent to use this simulation as a starting point for creating other simulations by deleting the objects you do not need and saving it under a different name. Several of the simulations on this web site use fullsystem.gsim as their starting point.

Download fullsystem.gsim

(You need to have the program Gravity Simulator installed on your computer first. Click Here to download Gravity Simulator.)