3 ms·
A two-body system is gravitationally stable, and three or more are not (long-term, in general).
by teraflop 11y ago
A two-body system is gravitationally stable, and three or more are not (long-term, in general).
- blankhole 11y agoThere are plenty of long-term stable three-body systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system Only 3-body systems nicknamed "Trapezia" systems are unstable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system#Trapezia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system#Trapezia Regarding the article itself: it's a nice simulation, probably correct, but the data barely supports the theory. Data is so noisy (and from different instruments) - they didn't even bother showing a periodicity spectrum. Feynman would call this bad science: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7569/full/nature15262.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7569/full/nature1...
- GregBuchholz 11y agoVeering off topic a bit, but you might be interested in planar n-body coreographies. Not that they exist in nature, but... http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/~jm/Choreographies/ http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/~jm/Choreographies/