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Sun-Jupiter Integrator (2D)
Help File
HELP. Displays this help screen. To exit, click one of the Exit Help buttons located at the
top and bottom of this screen.
INTEGRATION TIME. Here you specify how long into the future the
orbit should be followed. One Jupiter period is about 12 years. Be
careful in choosing this parameter as it is directly correlated to how
long you will wait before seeing a plot! A good strategy is to try a
short integration time first to get an idea of how fast the program
is.
Orbit of the Asteroid or Comet
SEMIMAJOR AXIS. The semimajor axis is half the long axis of the
initial elliptical orbit.
ECCENTRICITY. The eccentricity gives the shape of the third body's
elliptical orbit; it must be a value between 0 and 1.
An eccentricity of 0.0 will produce an initially circular orbit;
larger eccentricities correspond to narrower ellipses.
ARGUMENT OF PERICENTER (
). The argument of pericenter is the angle
measured from a reference point (
) to the pericenter (P) of the orbit with the Sun as
the vertex of the angle.
TRUE ANOMALY (
). This
parameter specifies the angle between pericenter (P) and the
position of the asteroid along its orbit.
SUBMIT FORM. Send the parameters that you have chosen to the
orbital integration program!
LOAD DEFAULTS. Set all parameters back to their default values.
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