Gravitationally Stable Three-Body System.
I've had this system running stably in Dave's Gravity Simulator for about two-and-a-half hours, with no end in sight. I have never seen a three-body system run so smoothly for so long, without any gravitational perturbations messing it up. The closest I did get was a three body system in which there were two planets orbiting in intersecting, counter-directional orbits for quite a long time, before one was perturbed enough to break orbit. What was interesting about that one was the two planets orbits were in 1:3 phase-resonance with each other, such that even though they were orbiting in opposite directions, and their orbits crossed, they never came very near to each other. This one, however, looks to be even more stable. I'm going to let it run overnight and check back in the morning.
--UPDATE 6/18 7:30am--
This is what I saw when I came in this morning.
It's actually not the same system. The number of starting planets is different (648 vs. 777). Also, this one has to have been running all night to rack up a score of 140,000. I was hoping that when I came in this morning, even if the system from yesterday evening wasn't running, the high score would at least indicate how much longer it had run. Unfortunately, this new system overwrote its high score. Crumb.
--Update 6/18 12:54pm--
The system just broke 200,000 points, and still isn't showing any signs of stopping. Further bulletins as events warrant.
--Update 6/18 4:33pm--
The system's at 240,000 points and still going. That means it's gaining about 100,000 points per nine hours, indicating it was running for about 13 hours or so before I got in this morning. I'll leave it overnight and see what happens.
--Update 6/19 8:03am--
The system died sometime last night shortly after I left. I got in and found a new system running, at 120,000 points. The final score for yesterday's was 268,911.
--Update 6/20 2:56pm--
The system that started night before last is still running, with over 400,000 points. I'm going to let it run over the weekend and see what happens.
I find that the first type of system, where you have a very large inner planet and a much smaller outer planet, is very stable if the planets are far enough apart. You can usually see how the larger planet causes the orbit of the smaller one to precess.
ReplyDelete