PLANETARY
MECHANICS

Space is not empty; it is a fabric woven by gravity. To understand how worlds form, survive, and die, we must first understand the invisible forces that bind them to their stars.

N-Body Gravity Simulator

LIVE TELEMETRY

Awaiting Launch Sequence

Central Star Mass5,000 M

Orbital Injection Velocity4.5 km/s

Too slow, and gravity wins (crash). Too fast, and momentum wins (escape). Find the perfect balance for a stable ellipse.

Kepler's Laws of Motion

Before Newton discovered gravity, Johannes Kepler observed the night sky and realized a fundamental truth: planets do not orbit in perfect circles. They orbit in ellipses, with their host star sitting off-center at one of the focal points.

[Image of Kepler's laws of planetary motion diagram]

Kepler's Third Law states that the square of a planet's orbital period ( $P$ ) is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit ( $a$ ).

P^2 \propto a^3

Universal Gravitation

Sir Isaac Newton provided the mathematical "why" to Kepler's observations. He deduced that every particle in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

F = G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}

This is the exact mathematical equation running inside the N-Body Gravity Simulator above. When you increase the Star Mass, you are increasing

m_1

. When the planet swings closer to the star,

r

decreases, causing the gravitational force (

F

) to spike exponentially, creating that "whip" effect around the star!

Expand Telemetry

Select a new vector to continue your deep space exploration.

PLANETARY
MECHANICS

N-Body Gravity Simulator

Kepler's Laws of Motion

Universal Gravitation

Expand Telemetry

Stellar Astrophysics

Exoplanetary Science

Cosmology