HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Here is a great Youtube video showing the sizes of objects starting with the moon and working its way up to the largest known star. (Our Sun is a rounding error at that point!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q - if youtube refuses to play because of audio try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKTu6B4Rgek

Here is another one showing an animation of asteroids discovered in our solar system from 1980 to 2011. It starts off pretty tame, and by the end gets scary! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONUSP23cmAE

⬐ Rhapso

So much bounty, waiting to be tapped. I want an asteroid!

⬐ JonnieCache

Here's his dataset:

ftp://ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb/astorb.html

astorb.dat is an ASCII file of high-precision osculating orbital elements, ephemeris uncertainties, and some additional data for all the numbered asteroids and the vast majority of unnumbered asteroids (multi-apparition and single-apparition) for which it is possible to make reasonably determinate computations. It is currently about 41.8 Mb in size in its compressed form (astorb.dat.gz), 153.6 Mb in size when decompressed (astorb.dat), and contains 573208 orbits computed by me (Edward Bowell). Each orbit, based on astrometric observations downloaded from the Minor Planet Center, occupies one 266-column record.

It's apparently updated daily. How have I not heard of this previously? The amount of fun you could have is unlimited...