They're oriented in all directions, the simulations all just show anitclockwise because they're being compared against our solar system, so by convention they display them that way.
@93Jnewton Yes these regular polygon solutions are easy to compute - they're called Kempler rosettes, but they're not stable so they break down over time.
In some incredibly contrived manner, it's possible. You see what makes a star a star is nuclear fusion, as you make bodies heavier their internal temperature rises and nuclear fusion kicks in once it exceeds some temperature/density threshold. But the threashold is dependent on materials. So, hypothetically you could have a planet made of iron which is heavier than a brown dwarf containing a large deuterium fraction. So... only possible in bizarro universe where gods mess around with stars.
I really liked this. You should do more videos like this that are more educational. It's a really great supplement to your usual fare (which is already somewhat educational to begin with).
Of course you can, but, each step in the heirachy must balance being close enough to the parent that they orbit it, and yet not so close that the Hill sphere is inside the body. For example there are stable (ish) orbits around the Moon, but if you put a small asteroid in an orbit at the same altitude as the Space Station then you can't orbit that because the Hill Sphere is so small it's inside the body. Hill sphere is a bit like the sphere of influence, but calculated differently.
What Scott does in Universe Sandbox: make random universes with multiple stars. What I do in Universe Sandbox: crash random stuff into eachother and make black holes.
@InfinityToPlanck It's important to realise that there's solutions and stable solutions, the stable solutions self correct if perturbed and are far more interesting, the braid at the end is a rare stable solution.
Scott you said barycenter way too many times in this vid, now its stuck in my head. Now I'm going to think of this every time I buy strawberries at the grocery store. To the berry center!
Hey Scott, you can find a triple braid orbit in Universe Sandbox under "Open Simulation"/"Standard"/"The Figure 8". By the way: thanks to you I purchased the Humble Bundle and had quite some fun with it. Thanks!
Thanks for making this. I'm actually trying to make a story where an Earth-like planet orbits a Trinary system and I bought US to try and simulate that
It will not move in principle but even a really really tiny perturbation will cause it to drift away. Placing a body in that point is like putting a ball at the exact tip of a semispherical hill. A "stable" position in the way that we commonly intend (like an orbit) is kind the opposite, like if you place the same ball at the bottom of a bowl. There in fact you could move the ball in some direction and it will return pretty quickly where it was before.
I just realized something. You could make cloverleafs and junctions with star trajectories... Sim City 4, meet Universe Sandbox. Universe Sandbox, meet Sim City 4.
There's speculation that Proxima Centauri (a red Dwarf invisible to the naked eye and also the closest Star to our solar system) may in fact be in a Trinary system with Alpha Centauri A/B. Of course, your idea holds up - Alpha Centauri is orbiting at a distance of some 15,000 AU, 306 times that of Pluto to the Sun, essentially making it it's own Star with some (very minor at those distances) gravitational influence.
@georgehotz100 You can come up with a solution where a particle cycles between both parents regularly, but I don't beleive a stable solution has been found, so it will. Rlbreak down over time.
@mrpaakman Actually, the the term tertiary means "third in a series." The term trinary is correct for a system of stars, but not as correct as ternary. The more you know ;)
Just curious. Do you *know* this is using Euler's method? I thought that Euler's method wasn't just bad for this kind of stuff, it's horrible. I'd be curious about how effective Euler's method, Runge Kutta, and higher order Taylor methods are. (One of many self-educational projects I've been wanting to get around to.)
Great vid! Did you hear Kepler found an extreme Mercury-like planet orbiting one of the Alpha Centauri stars? Can't find the source right now, but it has an orbital period of only a few days -- probably not going to be great to explore
Scott, check out pixel gravity! It's more realistic, includes Barnes-Hut trees for big simulations, and even general relativety, which makes for interesting oscillating but stable orbits around black holes. The only draw back is it's graphics though. It comes with a free 5 hour trial that you can restart at any time. Basically the only feature missing in the free version is saving. It has some odd controls, but comes with a good tutorial to help out. Also, making binary systems is MUCH easier.
There is no human who understands all of the majesty of the universe. All we have is an incomplete understanding. A painting that needs to be filled, or maybe re painted in some parts. There are theories which can be used as a blind man's stick but still, we don't understand all of the universe.
The actual theory about the formation of the solar system is that a giant nebula of gases and dusts collapsed under its own gravity. Doing this, because of angular momentum conservation, it began to spin while it contracts. In the middle it was condensing like 99% of matter giving birth to our sun, the rest of matter, because of elecrostatic forces before, and gravity after, formed little "lumps" that grew and collided each other until actual planet formed. This explain the "flatness" :)
In regards to your display on the three body problem, some russian scientists recently came up with 13 new solutions to the three body problem. I read it on Reddit yesterday.
1. Yes, Alpha Centaury A seems to have a planet orbiting that way 2. Yes but its very unlikely that two almost identical planet-size masses forms with the exact orbital parameters needed to orbit each other. Before it was declassified Pluto and Charon was described as a double planet system more likely than a planet and its moon. They are too small (smalle than our moon) to be considered planets but they are tidally locked each other and barycenter is outside of Pluto.
Hill Spheres. As long as a captured body remains within the parent body's hill sphere without any major perturbations, it should be able to maintain a stable orbit.
I was going to ask about having a planet moving between two stars in a stable orbit until you mentioned the braid orbit. So even if you had two stars of the same mass, there isn't a "sweet spot" that you could put a planet in, that it would orbit each star for a period and switch between them, in a stable fashion? Is this mathematically proven? Very interesting stuff.
Timely video---you may have seen the news just a few days ago about novel three-body braidlike orbits obtained from computer search techniques. The comment system won't let me put in a link, but the paper is on arxiv. Thanks for your KSP videos.
1. Yes, this is possible. However, for a stable orbit the planet's apoapsis must be at least 3-5 times closer in than the other star's periapsis. 2. Absolutely. Many astronomers consider the Pluto-Charon system to be a "double planet" rather than a planet with a moon due to the pair being very close in mass, and a few consider the Earth-Moon system to be one as well.
Would something like the moons of Reach in the Halo universe be possible, where Reach is orbitted by a large moon with rings which in turn is orbited by a small moon?
hmm, after thinking on it, Clockwise and Counterclockwise are really just a matter of point of view. For example, if you look at our solar system from the "top" it rotates counterclockwise, look at it from the "bottom" and it rotates clockwise. Huh, maybe I just answered my own question. In any case would love your response :)
You might (probably) already know of this, but since the story appeared just today, I thought you would be interested. 2 European physicists just found 13 more steady-state solutions to the 3-body problem.
Consider the universe is 3D while the solar system is essentially almost a 2D disk. So if you like from the "top" it's counter clockwise, but if you look from the "bottom" it will be clockwise to you.
It would depend on the problem, anything with a strong central force can benfit from a symplectic algorithm, especially if you're not interested in close approaches. large numbers would benefit from a cell code. It just depends on what you're trying to do.
I would like to see Scott make a solar system that has 8 or more stars that each have 2 habitable planets orbiting them. (A rainbow of stars would be fun to)
two questions: 1. is it possible for a planet to orbit a single star in a binary star system like the one you showed? 2. is it possible for two planets to orbit each other and a star at the same time?
I have another neat idea: Can a simulation be done in which The Trappist one system planets star is replaced with a quadruple star system? What is and are the likely scenario and or scenarios of a quadruple star system in the Trappist one on tidally locked planets?
Lagrange points are naturally unstable, like resting a ball at the top of a hill, since any movement will cause the planet to leave the Lagrange point and fall to one star or the other. It's like trying to balance a pyramid on it's tip.
Just how identical do the stars have to be for the three star braid orbit to stay stable? Is it a matter of pounds, tons, moon masses, earth masses, solar masses or what?
I’ve heard of Barnard’s Star before,which I believe is about 4 light years or so(give or take a few light years). Can you lcreate a scenario where instead of a quadruple star system,there is a 5 star system. Have you ever heard of a 5 star system? I know that sounds crazy,but I’m just so curious about a 5 star system,and what would happen to all of the planets?
Since your an Astronomer Scott, do you know if Proxima is considered part of a-Cent?? I hear that it is, then that it isn't... also, does a-Cent A or B have a habitable zone, and what do you think the chances are for there being planets there?
Hey Mister Manley I was wondering. If black dwarfs are pretty much dead stars that have run out of "fuel" would you be able to set foot upon one, and still be fine?
As unlikely, (or impossible, not really sure on these things) as it is, is it theoretically possible for 3, 4 or 5 stars etc of identical masses to orbit around one central barycentre?
I once found a normal star system but the temperate terra with life was tidally locked to the star and one side was completely covered in ice and then there was a green buffer zone followed by massive desert.
Wouldn't clockwise vs counterclockwise just be a matter of perspective? If you were to view our solar system from below instead of above then it would look exactly the same only clockwise would it not?
Scott, what do you think of Universe Sandbox 3? Because of it, I wouldn't recommend buying UBox 2, as you will have to pay for UBox 3 again when it's ready.
Technically they're not spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise though right? Since it'd only depend on your subjective orientation. So on one side of the planetary plane it'd be counter-clockwise and on the other side, clockwise.
Is it possible to set up a system where the barycentre moves in the pattern of a Lorentz Attractor? Any ideas what I should study to think about this? Thanks
"Euler's Method is also known by gravity people as, uh, 'crap'"
Oh Scott.
Implicit Euler has entered the chat...
I love how relentlessly educational yet very engaging these kind of videos are. Thanks for shining a bit of light into such a daunting topic!
They're oriented in all directions, the simulations all just show anitclockwise because they're being compared against our solar system, so by convention they display them that way.
I want to see a model of the Kerbol system on Universe Sandbox!
it wouldnt work the density to mass of kerbal is off and it would work accurately
A Norko I made it but in life-size, oh and in Universe Sandbox 2 not 1
@93Jnewton Yes these regular polygon solutions are easy to compute - they're called Kempler rosettes, but they're not stable so they break down over time.
Wow, that was both fascinating and easy to understand. Well done Scott.
Caught the Strongbad reference... man that took me back. Love the videos, Scott. Thanks.
Mr. Manley. You deserve your own show. You're personable, intelligent, and have a great sense of humour...saying nothing of that great accent!
No, L4 and L5 are Bowl shaped, if the mass ratio is high enough.
In some incredibly contrived manner, it's possible. You see what makes a star a star is nuclear fusion, as you make bodies heavier their internal temperature rises and nuclear fusion kicks in once it exceeds some temperature/density threshold. But the threashold is dependent on materials.
So, hypothetically you could have a planet made of iron which is heavier than a brown dwarf containing a large deuterium fraction.
So... only possible in bizarro universe where gods mess around with stars.
@Enciu Darius There are braid formations for satellites, but that's different from
This physics engine + Space Engine's graphics = my dream
i love how nerdy/knowledgeable you are AND make gameplay videos
A little easter egg in this game, it features Halo, Threshold, and the moon Basis.
never noticed that, wow.
TheCheesySquid yea its from the first game i belive// sorry bad english
TheCheesySquid Installation 04, to be exact. So yes, the original ring.
I really liked this. You should do more videos like this that are more educational. It's a really great supplement to your usual fare (which is already somewhat educational to begin with).
Loved the video, Scott! I learned a LOT from this. Thank you! :)
Of course you can, but, each step in the heirachy must balance being close enough to the parent that they orbit it, and yet not so close that the Hill sphere is inside the body.
For example there are stable (ish) orbits around the Moon, but if you put a small asteroid in an orbit at the same altitude as the Space Station then you can't orbit that because the Hill Sphere is so small it's inside the body. Hill sphere is a bit like the sphere of influence, but calculated differently.
Having Scott as my physics professor would be awesome.
What Scott does in Universe Sandbox: make random universes with multiple stars.
What I do in Universe Sandbox: crash random stuff into eachother and make black holes.
That 3 body solution was epic! Looks exacly like the infinity symbol
Scott big fan of your videos i have actuly learned some quiet interesting things from this
4:02 - It didn't crash, the simulation generated an error, but if you ignore it, you may crash.
@InfinityToPlanck It's important to realise that there's solutions and stable solutions, the stable solutions self correct if perturbed and are far more interesting, the braid at the end is a rare stable solution.
Congrats on 30,000 subscribers!!
Sure, but there are limits.
no, it's completely unnatural because it requires identical masses.
I think I need an ice pack for my brain. (>.
I would like to see you make more videos like this, great job all round
Scott you said barycenter way too many times in this vid, now its stuck in my head. Now I'm going to think of this every time I buy strawberries at the grocery store. To the berry center!
@roboman2444 But it would be unstable
gravidy
Gravity
@@misterusa7749 gravity without the g
Hey Scott, you can find a triple braid orbit in Universe Sandbox under "Open Simulation"/"Standard"/"The Figure 8".
By the way: thanks to you I purchased the Humble Bundle and had quite some fun with it. Thanks!
Thanks for making this. I'm actually trying to make a story where an Earth-like planet orbits a Trinary system and I bought US to try and simulate that
It will not move in principle but even a really really tiny perturbation will cause it to drift away. Placing a body in that point is like putting a ball at the exact tip of a semispherical hill. A "stable" position in the way that we commonly intend (like an orbit) is kind the opposite, like if you place the same ball at the bottom of a bowl. There in fact you could move the ball in some direction and it will return pretty quickly where it was before.
Wow. I didn't even know this was possible... My mind has been blown!
I just realized something. You could make cloverleafs and junctions with star trajectories... Sim City 4, meet Universe Sandbox. Universe Sandbox, meet Sim City 4.
There's speculation that Proxima Centauri (a red Dwarf invisible to the naked eye and also the closest Star to our solar system) may in fact be in a Trinary system with Alpha Centauri A/B. Of course, your idea holds up - Alpha Centauri is orbiting at a distance of some 15,000 AU, 306 times that of Pluto to the Sun, essentially making it it's own Star with some (very minor at those distances) gravitational influence.
Interesting video. Would love to see more, not necessarily universe sandbox, just planetary bodies and physics themed etc.
@georgehotz100 You can come up with a solution where a particle cycles between both parents regularly, but I don't beleive a stable solution has been found, so it will. Rlbreak down over time.
Just some launches and maneuving the comsats into their final orbits.
@mrpaakman Actually, the the term tertiary means "third in a series." The term trinary is correct for a system of stars, but not as correct as ternary. The more you know ;)
Even if they are just command line utilities, I would really love seeing some of the tools you have written yourself.
Ahh, one of my favorites. It's quite an interesting program. Saaay, try making the Kerbol system in it!
Just curious. Do you *know* this is using Euler's method? I thought that Euler's method wasn't just bad for this kind of stuff, it's horrible. I'd be curious about how effective Euler's method, Runge Kutta, and higher order Taylor methods are. (One of many self-educational projects I've been wanting to get around to.)
In the config menus you can change it, Eulers method is used by default, RK4 is available if you ask (and even then RK4 isn't that great)
Thanks for the clarification.
Great vid! Did you hear Kepler found an extreme Mercury-like planet orbiting one of the Alpha Centauri stars? Can't find the source right now, but it has an orbital period of only a few days -- probably not going to be great to explore
Scott, check out pixel gravity! It's more realistic, includes Barnes-Hut trees for big simulations, and even general relativety, which makes for interesting oscillating but stable orbits around black holes. The only draw back is it's graphics though. It comes with a free 5 hour trial that you can restart at any time. Basically the only feature missing in the free version is saving. It has some odd controls, but comes with a good tutorial to help out. Also, making binary systems is MUCH easier.
There is no human who understands all of the majesty of the universe. All we have is an incomplete understanding. A painting that needs to be filled, or maybe re painted in some parts. There are theories which can be used as a blind man's stick but still, we don't understand all of the universe.
I found the special trinary system in Universe Sandbox. It's called "The Figure 8" under the All Simulations category.
The actual theory about the formation of the solar system is that a giant nebula of gases and dusts collapsed under its own gravity. Doing this, because of angular momentum conservation, it began to spin while it contracts. In the middle it was condensing like 99% of matter giving birth to our sun, the rest of matter, because of elecrostatic forces before, and gravity after, formed little "lumps" that grew and collided each other until actual planet formed. This explain the "flatness" :)
In regards to your display on the three body problem, some russian scientists recently came up with 13 new solutions to the three body problem. I read it on Reddit yesterday.
1. Yes, Alpha Centaury A seems to have a planet orbiting that way
2. Yes but its very unlikely that two almost identical planet-size masses forms with the exact orbital parameters needed to orbit each other. Before it was declassified Pluto and Charon was described as a double planet system more likely than a planet and its moon. They are too small (smalle than our moon) to be considered planets but they are tidally locked each other and barycenter is outside of Pluto.
Hill Spheres. As long as a captured body remains within the parent body's hill sphere without any major perturbations, it should be able to maintain a stable orbit.
I was going to ask about having a planet moving between two stars in a stable orbit until you mentioned the braid orbit. So even if you had two stars of the same mass, there isn't a "sweet spot" that you could put a planet in, that it would orbit each star for a period and switch between them, in a stable fashion? Is this mathematically proven?
Very interesting stuff.
IIRC, there's a saved simulation in Universe Sandbox with the special trinary system already set up.
Timely video---you may have seen the news just a few days ago about novel three-body braidlike orbits obtained from computer search techniques. The comment system won't let me put in a link, but the paper is on arxiv.
Thanks for your KSP videos.
You are definitely the most intelligent person I'm subscribed to
1. Yes, this is possible. However, for a stable orbit the planet's apoapsis must be at least 3-5 times closer in than the other star's periapsis.
2. Absolutely. Many astronomers consider the Pluto-Charon system to be a "double planet" rather than a planet with a moon due to the pair being very close in mass, and a few consider the Earth-Moon system to be one as well.
What was that at 13:47?
Would something like the moons of Reach in the Halo universe be possible, where Reach is orbitted by a large moon with rings which in turn is orbited by a small moon?
Love the way you talk. Are you Canadian?
Thanks! Love the upload and I've not even watched it yet (pre-loading) :D
That infinite-symbol trinary cycle was a mindf*ck to me.....
hmm, after thinking on it, Clockwise and Counterclockwise are really just a matter of point of view. For example, if you look at our solar system from the "top" it rotates counterclockwise, look at it from the "bottom" and it rotates clockwise. Huh, maybe I just answered my own question. In any case would love your response :)
You might (probably) already know of this, but since the story appeared just today, I thought you would be interested. 2 European physicists just found 13 more steady-state solutions to the 3-body problem.
actually, i think we have. I read an article on it.
Consider the universe is 3D while the solar system is essentially almost a 2D disk. So if you like from the "top" it's counter clockwise, but if you look from the "bottom" it will be clockwise to you.
Personally I would use velocity-Verlet algorithm to run an N-body gravity simulation. What would your preference be, Scott?
It would depend on the problem, anything with a strong central force can benfit from a symplectic algorithm, especially if you're not interested in close approaches. large numbers would benefit from a cell code. It just depends on what you're trying to do.
I would like to see Scott make a solar system that has 8 or more stars that each have 2 habitable planets orbiting them. (A rainbow of stars would be fun to)
I love how Mercury and Venus just got ejected out from the solar system due to Jupiter and Saturn's intense gravity
That's not the reason.
two questions:
1. is it possible for a planet to orbit a single star in a binary star system like the one you showed?
2. is it possible for two planets to orbit each other and a star at the same time?
I have another neat idea: Can a simulation be done in which The Trappist one system planets star is replaced with a quadruple star system? What is and are the likely scenario and or scenarios of a quadruple star system in the Trappist one on tidally locked planets?
Lagrange points are naturally unstable, like resting a ball at the top of a hill, since any movement will cause the planet to leave the Lagrange point and fall to one star or the other. It's like trying to balance a pyramid on it's tip.
1:12
Mercury: cya bro im out
Venus: wait for me
Just how identical do the stars have to be for the three star braid orbit to stay stable?
Is it a matter of pounds, tons, moon masses, earth masses, solar masses or what?
thxthanks
hadn't realized that the braid braid solution would self correct
Finally i was wondering when he will make a video about that :D
@Bobmanx12 Betelguese Betelguese Betelguese
No, ternary would go along with primary and secondary, while trinary would go with unary (yes, unary is a word, look it up) and binary.
Would the "'Verse" from Firefly be anywhere near possible?
I knew I regretted purchasing this game. Thanks for making me feel better/worse.
Yes, he said that in the video. As long as it's within the hill spheres I think he said.
How is it you have so many stars to choose from? I know I can make my own but it'd be nice to have that many preprogrammed
I’ve heard of Barnard’s Star before,which I believe is about 4 light years or so(give or take a few light years). Can you lcreate a scenario where instead of a quadruple star system,there is a 5 star system. Have you ever heard of a 5 star system? I know that sounds crazy,but I’m just so curious about a 5 star system,and what would happen to all of the planets?
I thought it would be understood that I was refering to him having some real in-depth knowledge about this stuff.
Since your an Astronomer Scott, do you know if Proxima is considered part of a-Cent?? I hear that it is, then that it isn't... also, does a-Cent A or B have a habitable zone, and what do you think the chances are for there being planets there?
@Gamerlord97 This is what youtube's own app does when you reply on an iPhone.
So if we did find one, do you think that would constitute proof of life elsewhere, given that it would have to have been artificially made?
Hey Mister Manley I was wondering. If black dwarfs are pretty much dead stars that have run out of "fuel" would you be able to set foot upon one, and still be fine?
As unlikely, (or impossible, not really sure on these things) as it is, is it theoretically possible for 3, 4 or 5 stars etc of identical masses to orbit around one central barycentre?
That answers my question. How stupid of me, not to think of that. Thank you for explaining, kimihiro.
I once found a normal star system but the temperate terra with life was tidally locked to the star and one side was completely covered in ice and then there was a green buffer zone followed by massive desert.
That's an unstable position, it'll eventually wobble out of it.
Scott what do you think of the 13 new three body problem solutions that were just recently released?
Wouldn't clockwise vs counterclockwise just be a matter of perspective? If you were to view our solar system from below instead of above then it would look exactly the same only clockwise would it not?
what about habitable zones, is it possible to have a stable binary orbit and be in a habitable zone as well?
Scott, what do you think of Universe Sandbox 3?
Because of it, I wouldn't recommend buying UBox 2, as you will have to pay for UBox 3 again when it's ready.
Technically they're not spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise though right? Since it'd only depend on your subjective orientation. So on one side of the planetary plane it'd be counter-clockwise and on the other side, clockwise.
Is it possible to set up a system where the barycentre moves in the pattern of a Lorentz Attractor?
Any ideas what I should study to think about this? Thanks
What is the movement of the barycentre like for the braid orbit?
What kind of effort/time does it take to make a simulation of the solar system, and what would you do it with?