tkdguy Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 Here's an interesting program I spotted on another board. You'll see a simulation of the earth-moon system. Create a satellite by clicking and draging your mouse anywhere in space. Try to get a stable orbit around the earth or the moon. The earth and moon will affect the satellite's motion. http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/applets/satellites.html So far, I've gotten two satellites orbiting the earth. The first one has been going on for over an hour of real time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister E Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 Re: Satellite I've been playing with this for an hour. It's better than goldfish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 Re: Satellite . . . o.O . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McCoy Posted May 1, 2007 Report Share Posted May 1, 2007 Re: Satellite Have tried for hours to hit L-4, either too fast or too slow. Had one retrograde one that lasted better than 2 hours. Highly chaotic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I'm a Zombie, that was too good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silverhawk Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite Great find. I was chaparoning my wife's fifth grade class to the planetarium today and was fooling with it on one of the classroom computers. Caught a few of the kids attention when one that had gone off the edge for a while came back through and then left again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edsel Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I managed to get one in a very tight retrograde orbit that has lasted nearly an hour so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite It is addictive, isn't it? The only reason I was able to shut the program off was because I was disconnected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I timed the moon's orbit around the earth, which takes 32 seconds. If you want to round off that number to 30 seconds, then the moon orbits the earth twice in a minute. That means a year would take about six minutes, and an hour of real time would be about ten years of "game time." Just a rough estimate on how long your satellites last in game time. Edit: Never mind. I timed the orbit a few more times, and found out the time of one revolution varied from 19 seconds to 32 seconds. Of course, I'm on dial-up, so it could just be my connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite Have tried for hours to hit L-4' date=' either too fast or too slow.[/quote'] L4 doesn't exist without the sun, does it? Had one retrograde one that lasted better than 2 hours. Highly chaotic. Clockwise orbits are relatively easy to make stable. Counterclockwise orbits are really hard (or else I haven't figured out the secret yet). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGreenwade Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I've had two satellites going in each direction (four in total) for about an hour now. What I find hard is getting one orbiting the moon.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Anomaly Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I have lost more satellites to the moon than to anything else... I swear, that thing is a vacuum cleaner... literally... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I've had two satellites going in each direction (four in total) for about an hour now. I've got clusters of six and fifteen going. The former has been going ninety minutes, the latter sixty. What I find hard is getting one orbiting the moon.... I suspect the extremely exaggerated radius of the moon makes it impossible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite L4 doesn't exist without the sun' date=' does it?[/quote']The Earth/Moon system has different LaGrange points than the Sun/Earth system. Which one is L4? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Anomaly Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I wish the Moon would stop eating my satellites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite The Earth/Moon system has different LaGrange points than the Sun/Earth system. Which one is L4? Never mind, the sun has nothing to do with the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. Brain fart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite Those are the bestest! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Anomaly Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite Well, I've had one going for... an hour and a half now. It's in a pretty eliptical orbit, but the orbit seems stable, at least so far... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted May 2, 2007 Report Share Posted May 2, 2007 Re: Satellite I've got three that are approaching seven hours and four more that are thirty minutes behind them. (All are clockwise. My CCW satellites didn't make it to three hours.) I'm off work soon, so I'll leave them overnight and see if any are still alive in the morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted May 3, 2007 Report Share Posted May 3, 2007 Re: Satellite I had two still running thirty minutes shy of twenty four hours, but I had to reboot. Try this: Leave your mouse pointer in one position somewhere near the orbit of the moon, then start clicking rapidly about five seconds before the moon crosses nearby. Interesting simulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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