Star Motion

General discussion about Celestia that doesn't fit into other forums.
Topic author
Deanor

Star Motion

Post #1by Deanor » 17.05.2003, 07:33

My wish would be to see stars no longer stationary in space, but rather slowing orbiting the galactic center and such.

Excellent program! Thanks for your efforts!

Deanor

Brina1
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Post #2by Brina1 » 19.05.2003, 03:37

we barely know at all their speeds and directions... To do that we'd basically have to know their exact masses and simulate it using simulated gravity. Probably Newtonian gravity since we're not dealing with the warping of space as in Einstein's theories which somewhat contradict Newton.

You have any idea how much that'd slow everything down? LOL I have 2.1million stars in my Celestia and over 100,000 asteroids! If you put gravity into the equasion... My copy of Celestia will take a hundred years just to load up! ROLMAO

Not to mention there's some evidence that gravity's effects become nonexistant over distance, thanks to the planc (is that spelled right?). The planc is a unit of measurement that's so small that anything smaller is impossible to do because space and time fluctuate too much to be useable. That fluctuation could drown out gravity after certain distances. My guess is the smaller the star is, the sooner it's drowned out. But we don't have a formula yet predicting at what point something's gravity is drowned out by sub-planc fluctuation of space and time.

If my science is bad here please forgive me, I'm by no means an expert.
I once read that someone using a radio telescope found a galaxy that is composed of more than 25% water. Maybe there's a galaxy somewhere composed partly or mostly of chocolate chip cookiedough icecream.

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selden
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Post #3by selden » 19.05.2003, 04:08

Brina1,

The proper (RA and Dec) and radial (towad and away from the sun) velocities of many nearby stars have been measured. For at least the past 30 years, astronomers have been studying how various groups of stars stream together through space in the vicinity of the sun.

Quite a few people think it'd be nice if Celestia could include that information. If you search the forum, you'll find several threads discussing the topic.

I think perhaps you are thinking about the accelerations of the stars -- how the directions of their motions are changing with time. Those are indeed harder to measure in many cases.
Selden

Brina1
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Post #4by Brina1 » 19.05.2003, 08:20

selden wrote:Brina1,
I think perhaps you are thinking about the accelerations of the stars -- how the directions of their motions are changing with time. Those are indeed harder to measure in many cases.


that is kinda what I was getting at... only I didn't know that any measurements of the movement of the stars has been made... I just kinda figured we'd have to simulate it... oh well guess I was wrong... never said I was 100% right...

I've often lamented when tracking asteroids in Celestia about the lack of gravity... I found one asteroid that according to the data Celestia has, actually passes so close to earth from the south that you can see Antartica from the asteroid. Although it required a bit of a zoomin to see it, but not much of one. It's scheduled to arrive around March next year according to Celestia but the gravity's of Mars or the Moon is probably going to mess it up, or maybe the trajectory's off entirely... if anyone wants to check it out, it's the asteroid called "toutatis"...
I once read that someone using a radio telescope found a galaxy that is composed of more than 25% water. Maybe there's a galaxy somewhere composed partly or mostly of chocolate chip cookiedough icecream.


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