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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
@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 ;)
@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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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" :)
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.
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 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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
Probably, that was no trinary system but only three stars which look very close to each other from earth right now. In fact there are light years away from each other.
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.)
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.
It is possible for such a "double planet" to have moons of its own (Pluto and Charon have at least four), but these moons can only orbit the pair; any moon orbiting one of the planets would eventually spiral in and collide with its parent due to tidal effects.
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 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?
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.
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.
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?
although the gravity of the bigger planet will pull the smaller planet away from the other one causing a collision so i don't think its that completely possible
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 wonder what life would be like living on a planet in a binary star system. would it only result in star wars sunsets or would it completely change the way we would see time and the cycle of days
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?
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?
and believe it or not scott, the planet i described in my previous comment is orbiting binary stars!! (Sirius + Sun with the mass of Sirius) and the orbit is STABLE!! if you want to know i will load the universe and tell you the distance of the orbit, there are always sweet spots where your planets can have stable orbit. and i believe the position of the binary stars to the position and speed of where you first created your planet is IMPORTANT for stable orbit. it was a nice fluke.
You are not entirely correct. L4 and L5 are stable provided the mass ratio between the major bodies involved is greater than ~24. For L1, L2 and L3, you can get stable "halo orbits" with small relatively small effort.
"Euler's Method is also known by gravity people as, uh, 'crap'"
Oh Scott.
Implicit Euler has entered the chat...
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 love how relentlessly educational yet very engaging these kind of videos are. Thanks for shining a bit of light into such a daunting topic!
@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.
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
Caught the Strongbad reference... man that took me back. Love the videos, Scott. Thanks.
No, L4 and L5 are Bowl shaped, if the mass ratio is high enough.
Wow, that was both fascinating and easy to understand. Well done Scott.
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.
Mr. Manley. You deserve your own show. You're personable, intelligent, and have a great sense of humour...saying nothing of that great accent!
A little easter egg in this game, it features Halo, Threshold, and the moon Basis.
never noticed that, wow.
Kisseyhersh123 Which Halo installation? The one from the original game?
TheCheesySquid yea its from the first game i belive// sorry bad english
TheCheesySquid Installation 04, to be exact. So yes, the original ring.
4:02 - It didn't crash, the simulation generated an error, but if you ignore it, you may crash.
@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
no, it's completely unnatural because it requires identical masses.
Sure, but there are limits.
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).
Having Scott as my physics professor would be awesome.
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.
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.
gravidy
Gravity
@@misterusa7749 gravity without the g
@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.
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.
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.
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
Scott big fan of your videos i have actuly learned some quiet interesting things from this
I think I need an ice pack for my brain. (>.
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!
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.
That 3 body solution was epic! Looks exacly like the infinity symbol
@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 ;)
Loved the video, Scott! I learned a LOT from this. Thank you! :)
Congrats on 30,000 subscribers!!
Just some launches and maneuving the comsats into their final orbits.
@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.
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!
I would like to see you make more videos like this, great job all round
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.
@roboman2444 But it would be unstable
IIRC, there's a saved simulation in Universe Sandbox with the special trinary system already set up.
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.
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.
I found the special trinary system in Universe Sandbox. It's called "The Figure 8" under the All Simulations category.
Interesting video. Would love to see more, not necessarily universe sandbox, just planetary bodies and physics themed etc.
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.
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" :)
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.
Wow. I didn't even know this was possible... My mind has been blown!
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.
Ahh, one of my favorites. It's quite an interesting program. Saaay, try making the Kerbol system in it!
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.
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 :)
Even if they are just command line utilities, I would really love seeing some of the tools you have written yourself.
actually, i think we have. I read an article on it.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
1:12
Mercury: cya bro im out
Venus: wait for me
thxthanks
hadn't realized that the braid braid solution would self correct
Yes, he said that in the video. As long as it's within the hill spheres I think he said.
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.
I would love to see an explanation of the three-body system with common centers of mass and other stuff like that.
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.
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.
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?
Yesterday, i was observing the night sky, like i always do, and saw a trinary system!
Probably, that was no trinary system but only three stars which look very close to each other from earth right now. In fact there are light years away from each other.
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.
Thanks! Love the upload and I've not even watched it yet (pre-loading) :D
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.
It is possible for such a "double planet" to have moons of its own (Pluto and Charon have at least four), but these moons can only orbit the pair; any moon orbiting one of the planets would eventually spiral in and collide with its parent due to tidal effects.
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 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?
You are definitely the most intelligent person I'm subscribed to
I thought it would be understood that I was refering to him having some real in-depth knowledge about this stuff.
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.
I'm pretty sure that someone made that last system in Sandbox. I think it's in the list of all scenarios.
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.
That infinite-symbol trinary cycle was a mindf*ck to me.....
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?
Love the way you talk. Are you Canadian?
although the gravity of the bigger planet will pull the smaller planet away from the other one causing a collision so i don't think its that completely possible
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 wonder what life would be like living on a planet in a binary star system. would it only result in star wars sunsets or would it completely change the way we would see time and the cycle of days
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?
FYI post grad, never had any space orbital mechanics courses. The closest that I can think of was mechanical dynamics level 2
Probably from all the radio waves we have sent out into the universe.
That answers my question. How stupid of me, not to think of that. Thank you for explaining, kimihiro.
I knew I regretted purchasing this game. Thanks for making me feel better/worse.
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?
Problem is that all known small stars have extremely high densities and thus, very powerful gravity fields for their size.
@Bobmanx12 Betelguese Betelguese Betelguese
and believe it or not scott, the planet i described in my previous comment is orbiting binary stars!! (Sirius + Sun with the mass of Sirius) and the orbit is STABLE!! if you want to know i will load the universe and tell you the distance of the orbit, there are always sweet spots where your planets can have stable orbit. and i believe the position of the binary stars to the position and speed of where you first created your planet is IMPORTANT for stable orbit. it was a nice fluke.
That's an unstable position, it'll eventually wobble out of it.
You are not entirely correct. L4 and L5 are stable provided the mass ratio between the major bodies involved is greater than ~24. For L1, L2 and L3, you can get stable "halo orbits" with small relatively small effort.
What is the most commonly misunderstood thing about physics you would want people to understand?
So what would it be like to live on a planet in that fancy 3 star braid system?