Orbit of Celestial Bodies

Question

To give some insight, I'm creating a simulation, with gravity, planets, forces... And I would like to increase performance, by not doing unnecessary calculations. I could know what calculations, to not perform, if I know whether a planet, body or star is revolving an other body and no the other way around.
I don't know if this is even possible, because both bodies creates attraction forces between them, but:
Imagine a Two-body problem, a body with more mass than the other is located at the center of a reference system, and it has a moon orbiting. How I can, mathematically, know which body is orbiting the other and not the other way around? And if the both have similar masses, is this even possible? If this is not possible let me know I'm wrong.

Amirhosein Rezaee · Answer

I don't know what you're trying to achieve, but even in a two body problem, the center of revolution is always between the centers of masses of two bodies. This phenomenon, is so intense between Jupiter and Sun that their center of revolution is actually outside the sun. And for your simulation, check out https://prappleizer.github.io/Tutorials/RK4/RK4_Tutorial.html

Answered by Amirhosein Rezaee on April 21, 2021

Adrian Howard · Answer

Any two bodies orbiting each other will both orbit the center of their combined masses, the barycenter. If they are of equal mass the barycenter will be of equal distance from each. If one has greater mass the barycenter will be closer to it.

Answered by Adrian Howard on April 21, 2021

Orbit of Celestial Bodies

2 Answers

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question