This app is also available as a progressive web app. You can install it in Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers!
This simulation solves the n-body-problem numerically for theoretically
infinite objects in a 2D plane. This means computing the vector of
acceleration of each object resulting from the gravitational pull of the
other objects. The number of calculation cycles per frame is given by the
factor n * (n - 1) where n is the number of spawned objects.
The resulting force on each object will be calculated from a combination of all individual force vectors:
Made with Godot Engine 3.x (no physics engine involved).
You can spawn as many objects as you like with arbitrary parameters such as mass, radius, etc. This however is at the moment only possible through code, GUI is still somewhat work in progress; pull requests are greatly appreciated!
Controls: You can control the camera with WASD or the arrow keys and
the camera zoom with the mouse wheel. You can also click on any object
to let the camera follow it and display some stats. Right-click or ESC
to leave follow mode. Camera speed can be adjusted in the camera script
itself. You can also add new objects by clicking on add in the top right
corner and then click at any arbitrary place to spawn it with a random
color and random velocity.
Impacts are handled so that the heavier body gets all the mass from it's collision partner(s). Conservation of momentum is also being taken into account, but only looking at perfectly inelastic collisions. This seems like a solid solution for this kind of overall simulation.
Stats: You can enable and disable the resulting force vectors for each individual object in code. The top left corner shows the total number of objects in the world. Clicking on an object allows you to show any object's velocity, mass and it's current/past orbit in fixed space.
The 2D plane is nearly infinitely big and there is no maximum speed due to this being an all classical newtonian simulation. That means you can launch your own objects at any speed, however, if you don't mess with that no object will get even close to travelling at light speed.
You can also scale the 2D plane to any arbitrary number of meters per pixel. This needs to be done in code, though.