Home
Browsing Animations: Gravitation
2 Animations
Gravity-Animation-Solution.iwp
A red and a blue object orbits a large, fixed mass at the origin. The power of the gravitational force on each of the orbiting objects can be adjusted according to a number of parameters: the mass of each object; the gravitational constant G; and a 'power' parameter which changes the behavior of the gravitational force formula. The force on an object is inversely proportional to the distance between it and the origin to the power of the 'power' parameter. The real physical 'power' parameter is exactly 2. Observe the behavior of an orbit at different 'power' paramter thresholds: at 'power'=2, and at 'power'=1. What happens when the power parameter changes across these points?
planetary-system-retrograde.iwp
This animation shows the retrograde motion of two moons of a planet (blue) from the point of view of the middle moon. From the point of view of the planet, the orbits would be circular.Gravitational forces between planets are ignored.