• Press Z to randomize the setup. • Click the green flag to reset to the orbital and positional state at the start of the project. • Drag anywhere on the screen to scroll. • Press M to set μ. (the standard gravitational parameter) Choose greater numbers for greater gravitational influence from the sun. • Press 1 to reset the scroll to (0, 0). • Press 2 to center scroll on the planet. • Press 3 to center scroll on the sun. • Press P to set down the pen. (trace the orbit) • Press L to activate 'area sweep' — demonstration of Kepler's Second Law — every 2 seconds. (don't do this while scrolling!) • Press space to clear all pen marks. (including area sweep) ———————————————————————— I had shared this on my current account, @E_Equals_EmCeCube3, around two years ago, but unshared it then as it wasn't a good fit for it. Here's the project, reshared. DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT AN ACCURATE SIMULATION OF THE ACTUAL PHYSICS. Relax; the Earth will never get *that* close to the sun. Besides, our planet's orbit isn't very eccentric. It was only used as a demonstration. Perhaps my favorite of the laws of physics is Kepler's laws of planetary motion, which dictate how planets (and other celestial bodies as asteroids and comets) orbit the sun. Below are his three laws (in order): 1. All celestial bodies orbit the sun in a near-perfect ellipse, with the sun placed at one of the ellipse's foci. 2. The area between the sun and the celestial body covered within a fixed time interval is constant. 3. Celestial bodies orbit the sun according to a specific equation: r³/T²=GM/(4π²). Pardon the "low effort" — I had not originally intended to share this project. If the acceleration (a) is really, really small, consider resetting by pressing Z... Blue arrow indicates direction of acceleration. Green arrow indicates direction of velocity. Realistically, the sun would also be influenced by the Earth's gravity, but I'm too lazy to make that happen. :P #planetary #physics #simulation
