Orbits, Ellipses, and Protomasses, oh, my!
The big question for today is -->What factors affect the gravitational force between objects?
Start yourself a new googledoc, called Bigger Circles, and get ready to add some screenshots of your awesomeness.
You're going to try to make a stable orbit with a small mass and a Huge (or bigger!) Mass.
(turn on "paths", and then take and save a screenshot of your stable orbit - what shape is the orbit?)
Run the sim here --> http://www.nowykurier.com/toys/gravity/gravity.html
Can you make the orbit circular? (add another screenshot)
Can you make a stable system with two masses that are the same (any two you want!) (add a screenshot)
What did you notice about the speed of the masses as they got closer? Does the distance between the masses matter? Make claims based on your evidence from above.
Does the amount of each mass matter? (Make a claim about this and support it with evidence in your screenshots)
Now create the coolest stable system you can - and add a screenshot of that to your doc. Don't miss trying the "generate proto disk". It would be AWESOME if you could make a stable model of the solar system...
Research "Universal Gravitation" and explain how your results from above support the current claim physicists make about the Law of Universal Gravitation.
Make sure to add in a neat link that you find related to Universal Gravitation...
---------Extras------------
Here's a neat discussion of the history behind this, with some great links:
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html
Some interesting related topics include orbital cannons, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, gravitational slingshots, etc. etc.
