Inter-Planetary Modeling: Our Solar System Simulation

[Alkatran]

We had a project in PHYC 2050 to write an applet simulating a scientific model. Me and my partner chose the solar system, which was a step up from the other projects (ideal gas law, refraction ).

We took into account inter-planetary actions and used a simple "assume force is contant for time t and advance the system" algorithm. It appears to overestimate on average, but it had the best usefulness to "we can do this" ratio.

In any case, check it out at:
myweb.dal.ca/cr376499

The 2d version is the project we submitted and the 3d version is just me wanting to make it 3d. It already did all the z coordinate calculations so it was just a matter of drawing them.

Special thanks goes to tony873004 (from here) who told me about the JPL horizons system so we could get our hands on the position and velocities of planets.

 

[mattmns]

One of the planets shot out of space!

Here is an image:

http://img447.imageshack.us/img447/6930/planetgone7jx.th.png

I don't know if mercury is coming back

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/1850/mercurycomingback3li.png

No more problems with the moon
And years are now a lot longer!

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1102/nomoremoonprobs4al.th.png
The program stopped at 14129 years and 308 days

I am not sure what happened with some of the planets in long periods of time, but the program is still pretty cool!

 

[Alkatran]

That's because of the inaccuracy involved when the time-step has to be increased to go at 10 simulated years per second. The only reason I let it go that high is because you need 10 yr/s to see pluto move at a decent pace.

 

[Alkatran]

The thing that surprised me the most after making this was the fact that pluto was so out-of-wack with the other planets. I knew that it had a more elliptical path that sent it closer and further than uranus, but had no idea it was tilted.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4514/solarsys0us.th.png

 

[Alkatran]

Good news! We got 99% on the project, including a "1% bonus for contacting NASA" haha. The main criticism was "where are the solar flares on the sun?"