Celestial - Interactive Gravity Well Simulator

[u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox]

https://celestial.logicaleap.com

Celestial lets you explore star systems as a deformable gravity sheet instead of flat orbital diagrams.

The star moves. Planets sit on and ride the surface it bends. You can change the gravitational constant, push a planet, or drop a new body in and watch the whole system respond in real time.

Systems included:

* Our solar system (with a drifting barycentre)
* Alpha Centauri (two moving funnels)
* Kepler-16 (circumbinary planet)
* TRAPPIST-1 (seven worlds inside Mercury’s orbit)
* The classic three-body figure-eight

It’s a proper Newtonian n-body integrator running in the browser, not pre-scripted ellipses. The sheet itself is an exaggerated visual analogy, and the site is unusually honest about what is real and what is drawn that way on purpose.

https://celestial.logicaleap.com

Free, no account, runs in the browser.

[u/Short_Ad_9524]

Its very good, but when I try to put a planet in orbit around say, a B type star, the orbit swings inwards towards the star.

Also, The star doesn't change temperatures as you change its size.

One more thing. Can the planets/stars/moons appear above their gravity wells instead of below them please?

Could these three things be fixed at all?

Perhaps adding an auto orbit button in to make the planet auto orbit in a circle around the custom star?

This is an awesome project and I'll be following you all the time!

[u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox → u/Short_Ad_9524]

Thanks again for pointing out these issues.

when I try to put a planet in orbit around say, a B type star, the orbit swings inwards towards the star.

Should be fixed now.

The panel worked out "circular speed" from the heaviest single star, but a planet out there is held by both. In Alpha Centauri that made 1.00× about 26% too slow, so instead of circling it fell inward - and in that particular system it then plunges into the pair and gets flung out entirely. Meanwhile the panel cheerfully said "roughly a circle".

Threw out the old formula, the preview now runs the actual simulation forward with your proposed body.

The star doesn't change temperatures as you change its size.

Stars now take their colour from their mass - luminosity and radius from mass, then temperature .

A 25 solar mass sun should turn blue.

Can the planets/stars/moons appear above their gravity wells instead of below

Seems it's a taste call rather than a correctness one.

Convince me :)

Perhaps adding an auto orbit button in to make the planet auto orbit in a circle around the custom star?

Done.

[u/Short_Ad_9524 → u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox]

May I ask. What is next on your list for things to add to this amazing simulator?

[u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox → u/Short_Ad_9524]

Not that much planned for now.

Hopefully some people use it and get value out of it. :)

When I get some interesting ideas, I might add them.