AstroGrav Help /Sample Simulations /Solar System /Viewpoints /Planetary AberrationVersion 5.1

Planetary Aberration

This simulation is an interesting demonstration of extreme planetary aberration and redshift in AstroGrav. It was created by turning the Sun into a black hole, and then creating a 'Viewpoint' object in a circular orbit at a distance of 40 km, where it orbits about 250 times second. This results in the viewpoint object travelling at a substantial proportion of the speed of light, and rapidly changing its direction of motion.

If you set the simulation running, you will see extreme planetary aberration together with the redshift and blueshift of the stars. If you then switch off View / Show / Planetary Aberration, you will see that both of these effects disappear, and that nothing seems to be happening except for the time updating on the status bar.

You can create more and less extreme examples by editing the orbital elements of the 'Viewpoint' object. 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.