Orbital directions in the Kerbol system are counterclockwise, right? Then ...

[MetricKerbalist]

Hi KSP colleagues,

I am in a flight, and I clicked on the Maneuver Tool over to the right of the screen.  Then I clicked on the fly-out arrow to visualize the maneuver.  Then I moused over the planet or the moon in question.

They always show a clockwise rotation.  That's not correct, is it?

Just to be clear, if we observed the planets in the Kerbol system from the north looking downwards towards the south, all the planets and the moons would show a counterclockwise orbital direction, right?  (Incidentally, I think that is the case for most if not all of the celestial bodies in our real solar system.)

Could someone please explain this.

Thank you.

Stanley

[Geonovast]

Moved to Gameplay Questions since it's about the game and not real orbits.

 

Looking down on the north poles, all planets in the Kerbol system do rotate counter clockwise around the sun.  I haven't used that particular new feature yet, do you have a picture of what you mean?

[MetricKerbalist]

Hi @Geonovast,

Here's a screenshot.

I am mousing over the image of Duna, but my cursor does not show in the picture.  If you mouse over, then Duna starts rotating -- but in the wrong direction, I think.

Stanley

[Geonovast]

I think I see the problem.

The tool isn't showing the planets from a perspective of looking down on the north pole, it's showing it as if you're in a perfectly equatorial orbit... the white spots on Duna are the poles.

Seems it's just to show you what planet it is and not supposed to be representative of the planet's actual orientation.

[MetricKerbalist]

But wait a moment.

Right, the white spots are the poles.  However, is Duna's North Pole on top or on the bottom?  If the North Pole is on the top -- and I think it is, although I not an expert in Duna -- then the orbital direction is incorrect.

[Geonovast]

Alright, I fired up the game to look.

They are definitely spinning the wrong way.  It's not terribly obvious on Duna, but it is with Kerbin.

Definitely a bug, but it shouldn't actually affect anything.

[MetricKerbalist]

Not to misinterpret the point of my question, please.  I am not criticizing this wonderful KSP game.  I just wanted to make sure that I understood the situation.

[king of nowhere]

yes, duna's north pole is on the top. both canyons are on the north emisphere

[jimmymcgoochie]

So the planets spin in the wrong direction? I'd raise a bug report for that to get it fixed in 1.12.1.

[bewing]

13 hours ago, MetricKerbalist said:

(Incidentally, I think that is the case for most if not all of the celestial bodies in our real solar system.)

Yes, all the planets in our solar system have a counter clockwise orbital direction when viewed from above the Sun's (or Earth's) North pole. Because they all formed from one single accretion disk that was spinning in that direction, and North is defined so that the orbital direction is counter clockwise. Of course the planetary rotational axes in our Solar system are much more random, instead of all being perfectly aligned as in the Kerbol system.

 

[DDE]

2 hours ago, bewing said:

Yes, all the planets in our solar system have a counter clockwise orbital direction when viewed from above the Sun's (or Earth's) North pole.

Except Venus IIRC.

P.S. I'm mostly here to look at this neo-MechJeb.

[Geonovast]

2 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

So the planets spin in the wrong direction? I'd raise a bug report for that to get it fixed in 1.12.1.

They do in the animation in the new transfer window planner thing.  Just makes it look weird, shouldn't actually affect gameplay at all.

[bewing]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

Except Venus IIRC.

Well, there's a difference between "orbital direction" and "rotational axis" -- venus orbits the same way as all the others, but rotates backwards.