High Fidelity Gravity Models

Here you find pointers to utilities that help you create addons for Celestia.
Topic author
NASA_SimGuy
Posts: 24
Joined: 18.10.2018
With us: 6 years 1 month

High Fidelity Gravity Models

Post #1by NASA_SimGuy » 12.05.2020, 13:15

Anyone know if there are high fidelity gravity models for objects like Earth's Moon in Celestia? We have a few models in our simulations but I would like to cross check them with Celestia. We are using LP100 and GRAIL.

Avatar
Gurren Lagann
Posts: 434
Joined: 31.01.2018
Age: 18
With us: 6 years 10 months
Location: State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Post #2by Gurren Lagann » 12.05.2020, 16:16

I'd like to note one thing: Celestia is more of an emulation (no gravity simulation between planetary bodies) than a simulation.

If you are going to plot a spacecraft in Celestia with gravity models included, i recommend using GMAT to make the SPICE files for the trajectory of the spacecraft.
"The tomorrow we're trying to reach is not a tomorrow you had decided on!"
- Simon the Digger
"Nothing is impossible for me, as long I'm determinated to keep moving forward!"
"If other people aren't going to do it, I'm going to do it myself!"
- Me (Gurren)

Current major projects:
- Aur Cir
- Cel+
- Project Sisyphus
- Populating the Local Group
- An galaxy generator

Avatar
selden
Developer
Posts: 10192
Joined: 04.09.2002
With us: 22 years 2 months
Location: NY, USA

Post #3by selden » 13.05.2020, 19:28

Rather than thinking of Celestia as a simulator or even an emulator, I prefer to think of it as a 3D display program which happens to be optimized for showing astronomical objects. Celestia has to be told where each object is and what it looks like. It draws planets, moons, stars and DSOs in their correct locations only because of the "catalogs" which tell it where to draw them. As Gurren wrote, Celestia does not implement gravity. Nor does it implement any other inter-body forces. Any such interactions are only apparent. They seem to happen only because of how detailed the catalog entries are.
Selden


Return to “Utilities”