Earth and Moon

This is a simulation of a reduced two-body problem.

I have used data for the Earth and the Moon just to make it more attractive . The rotation is simulated using animated gifs. However, in slow machines, this can unnecesarily waste some computer resources. Hence, if the simulation behaves strangely, substitute the animated gifs for the static ones you will find in the data directory.

The difficult part is certainly to set up initial conditions so that the elliptical orbit has a period that approximates the real one of the Moon around the Earth. As an exercise for your students, delete the initialConditions initialization page and ask your students to reproduce it!

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Copyright © 2005 -  S. B. EglI

 

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Copyright © 2005 -  S. B. EglI