Astrophysical Simulation Software for Unix and Windows 95/NT

As a part of our new Astronomy Lab Manual, I have written some interactive software exercises that illuminate some of the more abstract notions of basic astrophysics in a graphical and hands-on manner. These program are freely available for MS Windows (3.1, 95, NT) and some flavors of Unix (Solaris, Linux, Mac OS X coming soon). Please email me if you use or like them. I'd especially like to know if you use them in a teaching situation. Source code is available upon request.

Now pick a program! [don't be shy...]
Orbits Program
Link Galaxy
Program Link




Gravity and Planetary Orbits Program

In the Gravity and Planetary Orbits program, you can drop a planet into a virtual solar system and observe the resulting orbit (complete with time, velocity, and acceleration information). Here's a piece of the display window and the control panel button bar. The dotted white circular line shows a circular orbit from the starting position, the red orbit is the one drawn. The user can mark the orbit with big dots at any time interval (in this example, the blobs are drawn every 0.1 year).

Orbit Startup
buttons in Unix Orbits Control Panel in Unix

Example output window in Unix


Downloads

Click here to get the MS Windows version! [Version 1.00: 26 kb, updated 11/28/1995]. Windows 3.1 users also need to get the Win32s libraries [1.3 MB].

Click here to get the Linux version (x86) [Version 1.0: 10 kb -- dynamically linked, updated 09/20/1997]

Click here to get the Linux version (Sparc) [Version 1.0: 9 kb, dynamically linked, updated 09/20/1997]

Click here to get the Solaris version (Sparc) [Version 1.0: 72 kb, statically linked, updated 09/20/1997]




Galaxy Collisions Simulation

Modeling the Antennae!

TOP view <------------------> SIDE view

And now the real thing... NGC 4038/9!

...and the real thing!

Cool, huh?This is a simple program designed to graphically portray how disk galaxies can transform themselves through collisions. The two disks are set up with up to 3000 test 'particles' in Keplerian orbits around two centrally-dominated masses -- approximately at the sophistication of the landmark Toomre and Toomre papers of the 1970's.

The goal of the program is to facilitate curiousity and tinkering, as well as providing an impressive real-time movie of the galactic interactions.

Famous twisted galaxies like M51 and NGC 4038/9 can be nicely modeled using this program. Matter bridges, tidal tails, and ring galaxies can all be neatly demonstrated in real time.

Galaxy Control Panel in Unix


Downloads

Click here to get the MS Windows version! [Version 1.12: 26 kb, updated 11/28/1995]. Windows 3.1 users also need to get the Win32s libraries [1.3 MB].

Click here to get the Linux version (x86) [Version 1.3: 10 kb -- dynamically linked, updated 09/20/1997]

Click here to get the Linux version (Sparc) [Version 1.3: 11 kb, dynamically linked, updated 09/20/1997]

Click here to get the Solaris version (Sparc) [Version 1.3: 84 kb, statically linked, updated 09/20/1997]


visitors since December 16, 1996. Last modified: Wed Jan 21 04:14:06 MST 1998

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