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Difficulty simulating trajectory of moon and sun for Apollo 11 mission

As an engineering student, I am doing a project about Kalman filtering and the mission Apollo 11. Now I tried to simulate the trajectory of the moon and sun for 3 days (the duration in which the ...
Blobmou's user avatar
  • 55
7 votes
2 answers
3k views

Would it be possible for a planet to orbit around a trinary star system in a figure 8 orbit?

I know that it is possible for a 3-body system to be "stable" in a figure-8 pattern. It's only stable if it is set up perfectly with no outside forces, but that's fine with me. If there were ...
Teagan's user avatar
  • 79
22 votes
1 answer
7k views

Is it possible to have a stable 3 body system that orbits in a perfect circle?

I.e. a system that has 3 objects of equal mass, rotating around the system's center of gravity like so: Please excuse the crude drawing, but I've just been reading The Three-Body Problem book by Liu ...
ROODAY's user avatar
  • 365
3 votes
1 answer
362 views

Best way to procedurally generate an orbit given mass and eccentricity

As stated here, I've badly expressed my problem and have made what we call a XY problem (the question was well answered nonetheless) so I restate the question. Sorry for the inconvenience I have a 2D ...
Eol's user avatar
  • 75
4 votes
2 answers
493 views

Given mass, position and eccentricity, is there a way to get initial velocity in a 2-body problem?

I know that the we can get the eccentricity vector like that: $\mathbf{e} = \frac{\mathbf{v} \times \mathbf{h}}{\mu} - \frac{\mathbf{r}}{\|\mathbf{r}\|}$ (source: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/...
Eol's user avatar
  • 75
0 votes
0 answers
176 views

2-body orbits expanding in nbody simulation?

Recently, I designed an n-body engine and tested it with a binary star system. After a minute of running, the orbit began noticeably expanding: Why is it happening, and is this natural? The source ...
WarpPrime's user avatar
  • 6,733
4 votes
5 answers
441 views

If an orbit is shifting due to orbital precession, is it still a Keplerian orbit?

I was thinking about orbits a few days ago, and realized that orbits shift/precess naturally. Given that a two-body problem with a star and a planet, if the planet has an eccentric orbit that ...
WarpPrime's user avatar
  • 6,733
4 votes
1 answer
283 views

Peculiar Amplitude of Earth's Orbit in Z Axis

I'm currently building an N-body simulator for my masters project and I'm using JPL's Horizons system to compare against. I started with just a couple orbits and everything seemed to be working ...
jameslfc19's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
842 views

How to discover Neptune from the Uranus orbit (by computer simulation)

I would like to demonstrate the existence of another planet (Neptune) by studying the discrepancy between the observation of the Uranus orbit and the mathematical prediction, this work was made from ...
Sergio Piccione's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
1k views

Stability of orbital resonance

Recently I've become more interested in the topic of the stability of planetary systems. I have been reading about it and it seems that orbital resonances play an important role in the stability of ...
Javier's user avatar
  • 418
6 votes
0 answers
150 views

Semimajor axis variations in co-orbital moons

I've been playing with simulations of co-orbital bodies similar to Saturn's moons Janus & Epimetheus- horseshoe orbits where the two bodies are of comparable mass- and I'm seeing some very odd ...
Logan R. Kearsley's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
559 views

For how many bodies can there be a stable orbit with no very heavy central body?

The question is a bit vague, but let me explain: Take for example 2 bodies of the same mass. They can orbit around their centre of mass/gravity. Is something like this possible with multiple ...
Joshua's user avatar
  • 143
0 votes
1 answer
77 views

How can I predict space directions?

Did the Neptune and Pluto trajectories ever cross or was it a mere reclassification? Do studies say that I can predict an intersection between 2 trajectories or movements based on data now? Do I have ...
Niklas Rosencrantz's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
22k views

Exercise: 2D orbital mechanics simulation (python)

Just a little disclaimer beforehand: I have never studied astronomy or any exact sciences for that matter (not even IT), so I am trying to fill this gap by self-education. Astronomy is one of the ...
statespace's user avatar