Does a planets orbit ever go chaotic?

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  • Thread starter Thread starter Hamish Cruickshank
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    Chaotic Orbit Planets
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the potential for chaotic behavior in the orbits of planets within a gravitational system, particularly focusing on the interactions among planets in our solar system. Participants explore the implications of chaos theory in the context of Newton's gravitational laws and Kepler's laws, considering whether these interactions could lead to instability in planetary orbits.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Debate/contested, Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions whether the gravitational interactions among planets could lead to chaotic orbits, suggesting there might be a point where orbits become unstable.
  • Another participant asserts that the planets' orbits are chaotic under certain definitions of chaos, proposing that long-term stability may arise from resonance, where planets influence each other's orbits positively.
  • A participant references the complexity of the restricted three-body problem, indicating that significant perturbations would be necessary for chaos to manifest in the short term.
  • Links to external resources, including articles and applets, are shared to illustrate the chaotic nature of three-body systems and to facilitate further exploration of the topic.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the nature of chaos in planetary orbits, with some suggesting that chaos is present while others question the conditions under which it might occur. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the predictability of chaotic behavior in planetary systems.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge the complexity of gravitational interactions and the limitations of models used to explore chaos, noting that some resources may not accurately represent physical realities.

Hamish Cruickshank
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Okay, I am doing grade 12 physics in australia and I was wondering about systems of planets interacting with each others gravity and whether this could cause chaos with orbits.

If all the other planets in out solar system effect one another, does there ever end up a point where the clockwork orbits will go chaotic? I don't know a lot about chaos, but there must become a point with Newtons gravitational laws and Keplars laws where it all goes pear-shaped and one of the planets orbits gets all messed up.

Could you predict when this would happen?

Youll have to excuse my punctuation as I am using a mac and the damn apostrophe won't work... grrr
 
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The planets orbits are chaotic (for some definitions of chaos)
Long term stability is probably due to resonanance where planets ahe settled into orbits where they each nudge each other into stability.
This article describes it rather better than I have!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12416923.900.html
 
If you want to see the dynamic complexity of just a (restricted) 3-body problem look here: http://cmvl.cs.concordia.ca/publications/r3b-06.ps.gz (at least I think that's the one with nice pics...)

Can the orbits go chaotic tho?

First thought would be that it would require an unphysically huge perturbation -- at least in the short time.
 
That applet's very nice :smile:
 
Cool thanks I'll check it out
 

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