Figure 8

[tony873004]

Translated from Gravity Simulator, here's 3 equal-mass stars in figure-8 orbits.  It's unlikely that anything like this exists in the real universe, as its only stable if M1=M2=M3, but its fun to watch.  Increase the time step to a few hours.

http://orbitsimulator.com/sandbox/figure8.xml

[Dan Dixon]

That is super cool.

And if you click on 'Focus on System Center' you'll see that the center of the system is always at the cross of the figure 8.

[frankdepinte]

Translated from Gravity Simulator, here's 3 equal-mass stars in figure-8 orbits.  It's unlikely that anything like this exists in the real universe, as its only stable if M1=M2=M3, but its fun to watch.  Increase the time step to a few hours.

http://orbitsimulator.com/sandbox/figure8.xml

Applying a velocity component in the z-axis to the bodies gives the following :

[atomic7732]

I've changed velocities sometimes and totally destrouyed it... Other times I made it rotate...

[Dan Dixon]

Try setting the VelocityZ values to something even more dramatic like 3000 instead of 10:

Code: [Select]

<VelocityZ>3000 m</VelocityZ>
<VelocityZ>-3000 m</VelocityZ>
<VelocityZ>0 m</VelocityZ>
It's not particularly stable, but it looks really cool.

Nice tweak frankdepinte!

[bessy]

this is possible in space but its very unstable as mass from the stars will be passed onto each other for eg the first star that passes thru the center will get mass from the other 2 making it heavyer than the other 2 this will cause the 2 lighter stars to hit eachother then and the other star will go into orbit of the star that the 2 lighter 1s made


this might be a good feature to add to the new US adding mass interchange between bodys like stars maybe by making particles apear having mass and removing the mass from the object it came from and when it impacts with another object adding the mass to it

[frankdepinte]

Try setting the VelocityZ values to something even more dramatic like 3000 instead of 10:

Code: [Select]

<VelocityZ>3000 m</VelocityZ>
<VelocityZ>-3000 m</VelocityZ>
<VelocityZ>0 m</VelocityZ>
It's not particularly stable, but it looks really cool.

Nice tweak frankdepinte!

Thanks ,
The orbits are stable , here's an animation of the orbits in an xy-view .
Click on the picture to start the animation ...