Solar System Simulator

I found this program while looking for something else. It is free for
private use and I think it is well worth a look. The program is graphics
intensive, so you would need a fairly good windows machine 500 mhz or so
and a good graphics card. At first I thought it was just another orrey
display program, but it produces a very interesting 3D display of our solar
system that shows spinning planets and stars etc, and the ability to zoom in
and land on any planet to take a look at the sky from there. It really gives
you a good feel for the relative size of the planets and their vast orbits.
You can also speed up the time scale so that the planets go around in their
orbits at a understandable pace. Another nice feature is the ability to
observe the solar and lunar eclipses and include comets and asteroids and
their orbits. Not bad for a freebie....
It is located at :
http://universe.chimons.org/contents/solar-en.html

Jeff wrote:

I found this program while looking for something else. It is free for
private use
snip

Another free simulator available for both windoze and linux
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/