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Big Ideas Of Science

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Description

This is a binary system. The velocities of the two objects are initially equal-and-opposite (object 1's velocity directed down and object 2's directed up). You can use the sliders to change the mass of the objects and choose to hide or show the net force arrows.

You might expect them to have repeating orbits, but can you explain why there is often drift of the orbits in one direction or another? And when would you expect no drift?

Note that occasionally the objects get a bit too close and the simulation does not handle the physics with enough accuracy to really reproduce the orbits accurately.

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