So to better improve certain elements of this blog I have obtained a new tool to better attempt to illustrate some of the basic concepts of extra-solar activity along with other fun stuff such as asteroid impacts and satellite paths. There is a wonderful program called Universe Sandbox (which you can download the demo of here). the system acts as a modeling program for gravitational situations such as planetary orbits and collisions.
A program like this can be extremely useful in illustrating certain concepts such as how a large body on the outside of our solar system would wreck havoc on certain inner system features (its not pretty) or what would happen if you put another Earth on the other side of our orbit (fun stuff, but generally little to no consequence). It also has some fun additions such as seeing how certain rings would act in orbit around Earth. currently I am working on a way of illustrating these models in case the sources I have don't have good images or display the system poorly from the perspective of a amateur to the field.
Wow, that seems pretty cool. I didn't download the demo, but I did watch the youtube video. Any idea on how realistic the simulations actually are if any of those events were to actually happen in the real world?
ReplyDeleteAfter running it, as long as I run the simulations slow enough it will come out accurately, I did have a bit of fun and watched Jupiter eject Europa from its system on a quicker simulation.
ReplyDelete