The purpose of this app is to let anyone experience the scale of our solar system. Based on a geographical location chosen by the user, as well as a given date and scale, it calculates the positions of all planets (plus Pluto and the Sun) on the map as viewed from a bird's eye perspective. The user can set the following variables:
- Date of observation: Since the planets move, you must pick the date for which you would like to map the current positions of planets, as well as the Sun.
- Location of Earth: The Earth acts as a central starting point for mapping the planets around it. By setting the longitude and latitude variables, you can define where to start your celestrial exploration. As a default, a location in the Mojave Desert is selected.
- Scale: Distances in our Solar System are usually measured in AU (Astronomical Units). 1 AU is the average distance between the Sun and Earth, roughly 150 million km. By setting the slider on the left, you can decide how many kilometers 1 AU should represent. If you set this to 1, for example, the Sun will be placed about 1km away from Earth and Pluto will be placed about 30km away from it.
You can try out a live version of the app at https://pdwarf.shinyapps.io/solar-system-mapper/
The following thoughts have crossed my mind, should I (or anyone, for that matter) ever continue to work on this app:
- A "play" button to see the planets move the +100 or so days from the chosen date
- Fixing the planets' size independent of the zoom level of the map viewer (like the behavior of a circleMarker in Leaflet) to get a "true" to-scale view of sorts
- Zooming in on Earth on app initialization (not that important)