AstroGrav Help /Sample Simulations /Abstract Systems /Binary Star and Planet 2Version 5.1

Binary Star and Planet 2

This simulation shows the motion of a planet orbiting just outside a binary star system.

You can run the simulation to see how the planet's orbit changes 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.

There are two different views shown. These are identical, except that one has the barycenter fixed, while the other has the more massive star fixed.

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.