Neo Radar: A browser-based orbital mechanics engine with 41k real asteroids
5 hours ago
- NEO Radar is a real orbital-mechanics engine for tracking Near-Earth Objects, integrating 47 high-fidelity objects with full RK4 N-body dynamics and 41,812 MPC catalog asteroids, simulating all 8 planets.
- Every trajectory is derived from JPL Horizons ephemeris with full gravitational perturbation from outer planets, providing mission-planning accuracy.
- Uses Newton-Raphson method to convert mean anomaly to eccentric anomaly, converging to 1×10⁻¹² within four iterations even for high-eccentricity orbits.
- Allows toggling outer-planet gravity, revealing uncertainty cones that widen on Jupiter-flyby trajectories (the keyhole problem).
- Benchmarked against JPL Horizons over a 50-year window: simplified two-body models drift by tens of thousands of kilometers, while NEO Radar stays within the actual uncertainty cone.