Searching for an Official Database of Solar System Properties

[Gannet]

I been looking at various places for measured orbital mechanics properties of the solar system and found very little coorelation. It made me think that somewhere there exists an official internationally recognized database for measured properties of the solar system with an accuracy that match the current state of technology.

Hopefully, it freely available to the public online.

 

[tony873004]

I been looking at various places for measured orbital mechanics properties of the solar system and found very little coorelation. It made me think that somewhere there exists an official internationally recognized database for measured properties of the solar system with an accuracy that match the current state of technology.

Hopefully, it freely available to the public online.

What kind of "orbital mechanics properties" are you looking for?

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.html
gives you lots of info such as position and velocity vectors and orbital elements of most solar system bodies.

 

[Gannet]

What kind of "orbital mechanics properties" are you looking for?[

Thanks Tony for replying the Data I am interested in is the following measurements:

• GM, km3/sec2
• EQUATORIAL RADIUS, KM
• SIDEREAL ROTATION PERIOD, HOURS
• ROTATION TILT ANGLE TO ORBIT, DEG
• APHELION DISTANCE, KM
• PERIHELION DISTANCE, KM
• SEMIMAJOR AXIS, KM
• REVOLUTION PERIOD, EARTH-YEARS
• INCLINATION TO ECLIPTIC, DEG
• ETC

Does an official database exist?

 

[D H]

An official database? Not really. Tony gave you a very good reference. Here are a couple more:

http://asa.usno.navy.mil/

http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/special/planets.htm

Beware, though: You are asking for information that officially does not exist. The planets don't orbit in ellipses.

 

[Gannet]

...Beware, though: You are asking for information that officially does not exist. The planets don't orbit in ellipses.

Thanks for replying, could you please clarified to this laymen?

I am assuming you are saying the true orbit are not ellipses, but are used to simplify the math. I would like to learn how the planetary orbital mechanics are actually done.

 

[spacester]

The answer to your question is the JPL horizons system.

They have a lot of documentation, but last time I checked it was pretty old school.

All the parameters you listed are given there and it is the official and most accurate data in existence AFAIK.

Kepler's laws of planetary motion make a couple of simplifications, mainly that (an artificial) satellite mass is insignificant compared to the body it is orbiting, and that there are no other gravitational bodies affecting the orbit. Other than those two major exceptions, the results would be exact.

Of course the solar system is littered with bodies that affect orbits elsewhere. These effects are called "perturbations".

In a nutshell, what the Horizons system gives you is the parameters of the orbital path and position of all the major and minor bodies at any given time, based on the effects of all the other bodies. The variation you see in the parameters such as semi-major axis and eccentricity is the result of the sum of the effects of these perturbation.

hth, I enjoy this subject, feel free to ask more questions.

 

[Gannet]

Tony and DH those are great sites. Was immersed in them all weekend. Big help

Thanks spacestar for comments. I will probably have questions and will post later on different thread.