Orbital Evolution

[tkulogo]

I have a system with a Mars sized planet and a close Ceres sized moon along with some more distant larger moons. This inner moon, starts out in an equatorial circular 7-hour orbit and is tidally locked. After 50 years in the simulation the orbit is mildly eccentric and is almost a fully polar orbit. I’m trying to understand the mechanics that drive it into a polar orbit. Everything I understand should pull it towards the other equatorial and orbital planes, but this one is being driven away from those other planes. Can anyone shed some light on the subject?

[Physics_Hacker]

I'm not sure of the exact mechanics going on here, but I'd say its partly due to inaccuracies due to timestep errors since you're having to run it kind of fast to keep the outer moons moving at a decent pace (At least I assume so, correct me if I'm wrong) and partly due to the gravitational pull of the other moons making the inner one's orbit unstable in that they pull on it from so many directions that it gets pulled into a polar orbit because I suppose thats whats most stable considering the timestep errors...Not sure though, just my theory for this weird phenomenon...

[Cesare]

The developers have to improve and fix the time-step errors when speeding up simulations. Hopefully, Update 21 will have gigantic tonnes of bug fixes which will lead to a much better Universe Sandbox 2 experience for users. Update 21 will also add tonnes and tonnes of features.

Just wait and see the roadmap for 2018. It will be out very soon.