In SpaceEngine, you may notice a bright reflection on some objects in the opposite direction of the sun (or other light source). This is neither a bug nor an unrealistic feature, but a real phenomenon called the opposition effect or opposition surge. The header image...
Author: Dr. Megan Tannock[mathjax]For a quick introduction to the SpaceEngine climate model and its main features, see our blog post here. In this article we provide a closer look at the physics and calculations behind planetary temperatures.The temperatures of the SpaceEngine climate model are based...
Author: Mykhailo MorozWhen thinking about renders of things like warp drives and black holes we usually just expect to see a simple approximation or an artist rendition, assuming the math required to pull off something accurate would require someone with at least a PhD in...
Author: FastFourierTransform Original thread on the forum: linkThis is a continuation of this discussion. Watsisname: I did try directly computing orbits with and without perturbation just to try to get some intuition for how the perturbation effect works. For starters I assumed co-planar, circular orbits, and also...
Historical notes about discovery of NeptuneAuthor(s): Propulsion Disk, FastFourierTransform, Watsisname Original discussion started on the forum: here Propulsion Disk: The first theory of Neptune's existence was made by Galileo Galilei, on December 28, 1612, probably one of the most well known astronomers, was once looking at the...
Insights for a complementary explanation of Lagrange points from inertial reference framesAuthor: FastFourierTransform Original post on the forum: linkI want to try to address this. As Watsisname said; establishing a non-inertial co-rotating frame of reference has many advantages in terms of understanding the actual situation but...
Gravitational balance and stable configurations in rotating reference framesAuthor: Watsisname Original post on the forum: linkIntroductionWhen two masses move in a circular orbit about each other, five points of gravitational equilibrium are generated, which move along with them. A particle placed at one of these points will have...
Author: Watsisname Original post on the forum: linkBackgroundOften in discussions of Mercury's perihelion advance, the effect is shown greatly exaggerated. Sometimes even the orbit is shown much more eccentric than it really is. Before we dive in, let's take a moment to get some perspective on...