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The Major Planets
Useful Online Planetary Resources
Below are listed a number of online resources that can be used for further
study of the relative motion and positions of the major planets as well as other
celestial bodies like asteroids, comets and meteors. Among the fundamental topics
for study are Kepler's Three Laws of Planetary Motion and Newton's Universal Law
of Gravitation. These topics are beyond the level of astronomy covered in
this website, where the key topics of interest have been limited to the three most
popular misconceptions in astronomy.
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Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion - A useful About.com tutorial of Kepler's Laws
with links to related articles and histories of astronomy.
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Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation - Another useful About.com tutorial on Newton's law of gravity and
how it impacted modern astronomy and "rocket science".
- Solar System Orbit Diagrams - A web resource maintained for professional
astronomers and "space professionals" maintained by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at
the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). Click on the links to see true-to-scale
orbit diagrams of celestial objects including planets, asteroids and comets in
our solar system. The "Inner Solar System" includes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
the Asteroid Belt, and Jupiter. The "Outer Solar System" shows Earth, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Halley's comet. The "Distant Solar System" shows
objects beyond Pluto's orbit. Also included are orbit diagrams for comets and asteroids.
- Physical
Characteristics of Targets - Another web resource maintained by NASA and
JPL for professional astronomers. It contains a wealth of information
about the planetary dynamics in the solar system.
- The LINEAR Project -
Website for the premiere Near Earth asteroid detection and cataloging project in the world
maintained and run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory
in Lexington, Massachusetts.
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Planet Quest Educator Resources - An educational website maintained by NASA and JPL for
K-16 educators who wish to take advantage of NASA's wealth of astronomy data and
information. Links are provided to many other online astronomy resources geared primarily
for students and other would-be amateur and professional astronomers.
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Basics of Celestial Motion. Copyright 2006
S. E. Scruggs
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