An unusual 7-body orbit for gravitationally interacting particles.
An unusual 7-body orbit for gravitationally interacting particles.
N-Body solves the gravitation n-body problem for gravitationally interacting particles. The solution of this problem has inspired and challenged physicists and mathematicians for centuries and few solutions for N>2 are known. The three-body orbit shown in this model was discovered by Moore in 1993 and proved to be stable by Chenciner and Montgomery in 2000. Other unusual N-body orbits have since been found although all orbits with N> 3 are unstable (and chaotic) and sooner or later the trajectories will fly diverge and the choreography will break.
The
initial-condition data for N>4 has been kindly provided by Carles Simó, UAB, Spain.