Oh, the Places We've Been: 21 Spacecraft Trajectories Plotted in One Picture

By Nancy Atkinson - December 16, 2013 at 1:49 PM UTC | Space Exploration
crop-infographic.jpg

Want to know the orbital paths where different spacecraft have traveled and where they are now? A great new infographic put together by Kevin Gill is a visualization of where 21 different unmanned spacecraft have traveled through the Solar System. "The spacecraft data and planet orbital data is derived from

NASA/JPL Horizons ephemeris

," said Gill on G+. "The image was rendered using a modified version of

my Orbit Viewer WebGL application

and put into infographic form using Photoshop. Body and spacecraft positions are as of December 15, 2013."

By the way,

Kevin's orbit viewer

is really fun to play with!

See the full infographic below or on Kevin's website here:

Paths range from the earliest vector data available, typically just following launch, to either the latest data available or December 15, 2013, whichever is earlier.

"Originally intended as an animation, my browser was not too amused with the quantity of data being thrown at it," Kevin said via G+. "In the new year, given sufficient demand, I may optimize the modeling and animation algorithms and either produce the animation or release it as a distinct WebGL visualization."

We certainly look forward to that!

[caption id="attachment_107256" align="alignright" width="580"]

Three different views of our Solar System and the paths of unmanned spacecraft trajectories from their launches to Dec. 15, 2013. Credit: Kevin Gill. [/caption]

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com