Earlier this morning I played around with the data sets in OpenSpace in hopes of determining whether there is data that represents height of landmasses over time. I hoped OpenSpace would have this information, because it could then be used to determine the rate of change over several years for land formations created by impacts, and then 3D modeled in the project that I wrote yesterday’s proposal on. Unfortunately, OpenSpace did not have this capability, so I moved on to organizing the paper I will be writing over the next several days for Dr. Smith. My paper will use OpenSpace to investigate and categorize the different types of asteroids and comets found in the asteroid belt, as well as touch on some notable impact crates here on Earth. The asteroid data set works on my computer, but it is an extremely large data set and therefore works more effectively on bigger lab computers, so it is possible that I will be able to go into the lab in the next few days to work on the asteroids data set there instead.
The picture to the left shows my screen, where I was working with the Haley-type comet data set specifically. Haley-type comets are periodic comets, which is a general classification that means the comets have an orbital period of anywhere between 20 and 200 years.
Another interesting thing that I learned today is that asteroids are divided into two categories by location of their orbit– Main Belt asteroids and Near-Earth asteroids. 
The vast majority of asteroids are in the Main Belt, but Near-Earth asteroids are then divided into 4 further categories–Amor asteroids, Apollo asteroids, Aten asteroids, and Atira asteroids. Amor asteroids have an orbit that is outside of Earth’s but inside of Mars’; Apollo asteroids have an orbit with semi-major axes that are greater than Earth’s; Aten asteroids have semi-major axes that are smaller than Earth’s; and, Atira asteroids have orbits that are smaller than Earth’s and entirely contained within Earth’s orbit. The diagram to the right illustrates all of this, except Atira (I could not find a diagram for it). I can’t wait to keep working on my paper and in OpenSpace!
