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Orrery

The Solar System's minor planets, shown in the order they were discovered. Each dot is an asteroid on its orbit. New discoveries appear green, then settle to grey, or to their group's color: Near Earth teal, Jupiter Trojans gold, Distant violet; the belt shows its zones in rose on the Main belt preset. The date and running count are at the bottom left.

Use the [⏸︎] / [⏵︎] control or the at the bottom left to control the timeline. Open (top left) to change the speed, real time, planet labels, orbit lines, or resolution. Choose the or renderer. Negative speed rewinds. Scroll to zoom. On a touch screen, drag down or up in 2D to zoom in or out; in 3D, drag to orbit the camera.

Orbits are fixed ellipses from Minor Planet Center orbital elements, so positions are approximate. Only numbered minor planets with a known discovery date are included.

Code: GitHub. Data: Minor Planet Center via orrery-data.

Minor-planet groups

These presets name numbered objects with a known discovery date. The menu chooses which objects are shown: everything, one group alone, or everything but the belt. Group colors keeps that same set and paints it by orbit: Near Earth teal, Hungarias orange, Hildas blue, Jupiter Trojans gold, Distant violet. The belt stays gray on All; the Main belt preset and its zones paint it in rose, light inner to dark outer. Without group colors everything is gray. A new arrival is green, then settles to its group color or to gray. Asteroids are minor planets; they are not offered as a separate filter. Groups are by orbit shape in this app, not official MPC Orbit_type.

Near Earth
Perihelion closer than 1.3 AU. Sparse at the 1980 start; this numbered catalog is only a sample of known NEAs.
Hungarias
Inside 2 AU on orbits tilted 16–34° with eccentricity at most 0.18. A thin ring at the belt’s inner edge; the tilt shows in 3D.
Main belt
The dense doughnut between Mars and Jupiter. Most of what the orrery shows. Three zones by orbit size: inner up to 2.5 AU, middle to 2.82 AU, outer to the edge near 3.3 AU. The cuts are Kirkwood gaps, empty lanes cleared by Jupiter. Cybeles and the few strays between the belt edge and Jupiter count as outer; Mars-crossers count as inner. Orbits are stretched, so the zones overlap on screen.
Hildas
Near 4 AU, three orbits for every two of Jupiter. Together they trace a triangle that turns with the planet.
Jupiter Trojans
Not the main-belt doughnut: two swarms that share Jupiter’s orbit, ahead and behind the planet (L4/L5). They read clearly after playback into the 2000s.
Distant
Beyond Jupiter: Centaurs between the giants and trans-Neptunian objects beyond Neptune.

PHA and dwarf planets are not controls. A PHA is a near-Earth object that can pass close to Earth and is large enough to matter; this catalogue does not carry that flag. Dwarf planets overlap these groups and need names before they can be marked.

The count is what the group menu shows at the committed date, colored or gray. It is not a live MPC census.

Data: Minor Planet Center.