Comments and questions about the
APOD on the main view screen.
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APOD Robot
- Otto Posterman
- Posts: 5516
- Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:27 am
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Contact:
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by APOD Robot » Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:06 am
Super Planet Crash
Explanation: Can you create a planetary system that lasts for 500 years?
Super Planet Crash, the featured game, allows you to try. To create up to ten planets, just click anywhere near the central star. Planet types can be selected on the left in order of increasing mass:
Earth,
Super-Earth,
Ice giant,
Giant planet,
Brown dwarf, or
Dwarf star. Each planet is gravitationally attracted not only to the central Sun-like star, but to other planets. Points are awarded, with bonus factors applied for increasingly crowded and
habitable systems. The game ends after 500 years or when a planet is gravitationally expelled.
Many exoplanetary systems are being discovered in recent years, and
Super Planet Crash demonstrates why some remain stable. As you might suspect after playing
Super Planet Crash a few times, there is reason to believe that our own
Solar System has
lost planets during its formation.
[/b]
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starsurfer
- Stellar Cartographer
- Posts: 5409
- Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm
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by starsurfer » Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:21 am
This is very fun and almost addictive and also very timely for the current climate we live in of almost endless exoplanet announcements!
So far I've managed 44,530 points over 17.3 years, which I think is very good!
![Laughing :lol2:](./images/smilies/asterisk_laugh.gif)
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BDanielMayfield
- Don't bring me down
- Posts: 2524
- Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:24 am
- AKA: Bruce
- Location: East Idaho
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by BDanielMayfield » Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:23 pm
Man I can't wait to play this game, but I have to wait for it's off to work I must go. Monday morning blues ...
![:) :ssmile:](./images/smilies/smile.gif)
Just as zero is not equal to infinity, everything coming from nothing is illogical.
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FloridaMike
- Science Officer
- Posts: 413
- Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2011 2:21 pm
- Location: Florida, USA
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by FloridaMike » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:35 pm
Over 244,000 in 500.1 years. Clicked to register the score and the program said it was #1 ! Woo Hoo !
Certainty is an emotion. So follow your spindle neurons.
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Chris Peterson
- Abominable Snowman
- Posts: 18490
- Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
- Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
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Contact:
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by Chris Peterson » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:43 pm
One problem with presenting this simulator as a game which ends when a planet is ejected is that we lose sense of the evolutionary nature of planetary systems.
In real life, no system with more than two bodies is stable- the mathematics of chaos is present, and all such systems will eventually fall apart. A less limiting gravitational simulator lets us observe how a system that starts with dozens or hundreds of planet-mass bodies interacts with itself, creates resonances, ejects bodies, until we're left with just a handful of planets remaining in positions of relative stability, able to persist with little change for billions of years.
(I sure hope we don't have any whacky creationists out there attempting to use this simulation as an argument for Creative Design!)
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FloridaMike
- Science Officer
- Posts: 413
- Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2011 2:21 pm
- Location: Florida, USA
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by FloridaMike » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:57 pm
Ok, to score high go for the Habitability Bonus, 27,378,457 in 500.2 years...
Certainty is an emotion. So follow your spindle neurons.
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Ron-Astro Pharmacist
- Resistored Fizzacist
- Posts: 889
- Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:34 pm
- AKA: Fred
- Location: Idaho USA
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by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Mon Jan 12, 2015 4:14 pm
One of the most strangest on-line classes I've ever attempted was on Chaos theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
The double pendulum was enough to make me a believer that once you get any more than a few systems interacting there was little chance of predicting the outcome. One warning – watching the pendulum can get hypnotic.
Z –
Z –
Z-
z
Just had the strangest dream about butterflies.
![Laughing :lol2:](./images/smilies/asterisk_laugh.gif)
The Lorenz attractor flies in the face of reason. How can something ordered come out of chaos? I guess it's back to class
![Yes. :yes:](./images/smilies/yes.gif)
Make Mars not Wars
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Nekoninda
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by Nekoninda » Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:55 pm
I'm confused by the indication at the outer circle in the game field, labeled "2.00 AU". This seems to be the "barrier", which ends the game when a planet reaches it. An orbit with a diameter of 2 AU is in the position of Earth, relative to the sun. This indicates that no planet beyond Earth is possible, in this game. And that Earth's orbit is well beyond the "Habitable Zone". What am I missing?
I'd also like to be able to watch the simulation, when a planet moves outside the "barrier". Rather than stopping the simulation at the moment when the planet touches the "barrier", it would be interesting to see what the escaping planet's path would be.
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Chris Peterson
- Abominable Snowman
- Posts: 18490
- Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
- Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
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Contact:
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by Chris Peterson » Mon Jan 12, 2015 6:04 pm
Nekoninda wrote:I'm confused by the indication at the outer circle in the game field, labeled "2.00 AU". This seems to be the "barrier", which ends the game when a planet reaches it. An orbit with a diameter of 2 AU is in the position of Earth, relative to the sun. This indicates that no planet beyond Earth is possible, in this game. And that Earth's orbit is well beyond the "Habitable Zone". What am I missing?
The outside of the simulation is at a
radius of 2 AU, not a
diameter. That's about where the inner asteroid belt lies in our system.
The simulation is only modeling the inner part of a stellar planetary system, but certainly covers the 1 AU habitable zone.
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BMAONE23
- Commentator Model 1.23
- Posts: 4076
- Joined: Wed Feb 23, 2005 6:55 pm
- Location: California
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by BMAONE23 » Mon Jan 12, 2015 6:22 pm
I got 250,900 with 8 planets: 5 Earths, 1 gas, 1 Earth, and 1 Ice
Near the end the 7th planet began to gain instability though
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bystander
- Apathetic Retiree
- Posts: 21590
- Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
- Location: Oklahoma
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by bystander » Mon Jan 12, 2015 6:59 pm
It would be fun to have one scaled to about 50 AU (just outside Pluto max), or at least outside Neptune (~30 AU). How crowded could the Solar System be?
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
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FloridaMike
- Science Officer
- Posts: 413
- Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2011 2:21 pm
- Location: Florida, USA
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by FloridaMike » Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:27 pm
Chris Peterson wrote:One problem with presenting this simulator as a game which ends when a planet is ejected is that we lose sense of the evolutionary nature of planetary systems.
In real life, no system with more than two bodies is stable- the mathematics of chaos is present, and all such systems will eventually fall apart. A less limiting gravitational simulator lets us observe how a system that starts with dozens or hundreds of planet-mass bodies interacts with itself, creates resonances, ejects bodies, until we're left with just a handful of planets remaining in positions of relative stability, able to persist with little change for billions of years.
(I sure hope we don't have any whacky creationists out there attempting to use this simulation as an argument for Creative Design!)
I constructed several systems that are stable to the 500 (million??) year limit of the game. They are so stable that running it on 128x speed is the only real option. Most of the time the system looks perfectly stable and then chaos erupts! It would be nice to e able to rewind the game to see what precipitated the collapse.
Certainty is an emotion. So follow your spindle neurons.
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Timaru_lad
- Asternaut
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:27 am
- AKA: Pete
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by Timaru_lad » Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:27 pm
Hmmm, every score I register is number 1, so obviously it isn't
![Sad :-(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
I did manage to get just over 28,000,000 in 500 years by adding only 1 planet, a dwarf star, which put the 1st planet into a stable tight elliptical orbit.
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BMAONE23
- Commentator Model 1.23
- Posts: 4076
- Joined: Wed Feb 23, 2005 6:55 pm
- Location: California
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by BMAONE23 » Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:33 pm
Woo Hoo
Position 1259
2,954,021
3 planets and a Brown Dwarf
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Timaru_lad
- Asternaut
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:27 am
- AKA: Pete
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by Timaru_lad » Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:39 pm
BMAONE23 wrote:Woo Hoo
Position 1259
2,954,021
3 planets and a Brown Dwarf
What, it actually gave a position other than number 1? That's strange. BTW I just got 37,276,051 in 500.2 years
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
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dman
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by dman » Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:59 pm
Nekoninda wrote:I'd also like to be able to watch the simulation, when a planet moves outside the "barrier". Rather than stopping the simulation at the moment when the planet touches the "barrier", it would be interesting to see what the escaping planet's path would be.
The escaping planet's path would be a straight line (relative to the sun). Once ejected, there is a very minimal percentage of it ever encountering another significant gravitational force again - it would essentially just hurtle through empty space on that same trajectory until the end of time or a chance encounter with another star / rogue planet.
Although I suppose it would technically be in orbit around the galactic center like the Sun is (hence the "relative to the sun" in the beginning).
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Chris Peterson
- Abominable Snowman
- Posts: 18490
- Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
- Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
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Contact:
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by Chris Peterson » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:09 pm
dman wrote:The escaping planet's path would be a straight line (relative to the sun).
Actually, the escaping planet remains in orbit around the Sun until it is perturbed or captured by another body. It's just that it has moved from a closed orbit (e<1) to an open orbit (e>1), a hyperbola. To avoid confusion, the word "orbit" is often replaced with "trajectory" once the eccentricity becomes one or greater. So it isn't traveling in a straight line, but is following a curve.
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gabrielle
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by gabrielle » Tue May 24, 2022 1:58 pm
this game no longer works, but to be fair it has been almost a decade since it was posted.