Pluto’s Resonant Orbit Visualized in 4D
Open Access
- 20 October 2021
- journal article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in Research Notes of the AAS
- Vol. 5 (10), 235
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/ac3086
Abstract
Orbital resonance phenomena are notoriously difficult to communicate in words due to the complex dynamics arising from the interplay of gravity and orbital angular momentum. A well known example is Pluto's 3:2 mean motion resonance with Neptune. We have developed a python software tool to visualize the full three-dimensional aspects of Pluto's resonant orbital dynamics over time. The visualizations include still images and animated movies. By contrasting Pluto's resonant dynamics with the dynamics of a nearby non-resonant orbit, this tool enables better understanding and exploration of complex planetary dynamics phenomena.This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
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- whfast: a fast and unbiased implementation of a symplectic Wisdom–Holman integrator for long-term gravitational simulationsMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2015