PSCB57H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Celestial Mechanics, Astronomical Object, Fiji
Document Summary
We"ll discuss today an important real world application of numerical ode integration: celestial me- chanics. Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of any kind of celestial object. These motions are governed by newton"s law of gravitation. In some cases there are small correction due to general relativity, tides or radiation forces, which we will not include in our model. Newtonian gravity says that a bodies of mass mi feels another body of mass mj, separated by the vector ~r, with the following force. The last term is simply telling us in which direction the force is directed (towards the other body). If there are n bodies in total, then the force is a sum over all bodies (except the body on which the force is exerted): To get an acceleration from a force, we use the well known law. ~f = m~a so that we end up with the acceleration on the i-particle being.
