N-Body Problem in 2D

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This Demonstration shows a two-dimensional version of the -body problem, in which different masses interact gravitationally. In order to predict their motions, a system of coupled differential equations must be solved consistent with a set of initial conditions for positions and velocities that are chosen at random.

Contributed by: Enrique Zeleny (February 2013)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


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The equations of motion are:

,

where is the acceleration of the body , is the gravitational constant, is the mass, and is the vector connecting masses and .

Reference

[1] M. Trenti and P. Hut, "N-Body Simulations (Gravitational)," Scholarpedia, 3(5):3930, 2008. www.scholarpedia.org/article/N-body_simulations _ %28 gravitational %29.



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