This simulation shows the chaotic motion of a planet within a binary star system.
You can run the simulation to see how the planet's orbit moves from one star to the the other as the simulation evolves. You can also edit the masses, orbital periods, and orbital eccentricities of one or more objects to see what effect your changes have. By changing the planet's orbital inclination from zero, you can effectively change the simulation from two dimensional to three dimensional.
Since different computers run at different speeds, you may need to edit the evolution time step to get the simulation to run at an acceptable rate.
Copyright © 2005-2024, AstroGrav Astronomy Software