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Saturn Flyby: Detailed Simulation

Jeffrey Bryant

Jeffrey Bryant, Wolfram|Alpha, LLC

Posted 6 years ago

POSTED BY: Jeffrey Bryant

10 Replies

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Rand Baldwin

Rand Baldwin, AEgis Technologies | Defense & Space

Posted 6 years ago

POSTED BY: Rand Baldwin

Alexander Trounev

Alexander Trounev, A&E Trounev IT Consulting

Posted 6 years ago

Here was used a black cylinder. So we can go to imitate the shadow not only on the rings but also the shadow on satellites and moons. And you're right. I used a simple approximation for moons - circular orbits with an arbitrary initial positions. saturnradius1 = QuantityMagnitude[Entity["Planet", "Saturn"]["PolarRadius"], "Kilometers"]; saturnobliquity = .2; Shadow = Graphics3D[{Black, Cylinder[{{0, 0, 0}, {30ringouterradiusCos[saturnobliquity], 0, -30ringouterradiusSin[saturnobliquity]}}, saturnradius1]}];

Here was used a black cylinder. So we can go to imitate the shadow not only on the rings but also the shadow on satellites and moons. And you're right. I used a simple approximation for moons - circular orbits with an arbitrary initial positions.

   saturnradius1 = 
  QuantityMagnitude[Entity["Planet", "Saturn"]["PolarRadius"], 
   "Kilometers"];
saturnobliquity = .2; Shadow = Graphics3D[{Black, 
    Cylinder[{{0, 0, 0}, {30*ringouterradius*Cos[saturnobliquity], 
       0, -30*ringouterradius*Sin[saturnobliquity]}}, 
     saturnradius1]}];

POSTED BY: Alexander Trounev

Alexander Trounev

Alexander Trounev, A&E Trounev IT Consulting

Posted 6 years ago

Good job Jeff! For my taste we can remove the stars from the scene but add moons QuantityMagnitude[ UnitConvert[ PlanetaryMoonData[{"Mimas", "Enceladus", "Tethys", "Dione", "Rhea", "Titan"}, {"OrbitPeriod", "SemimajorAxis", "Radius"}], "SI"]] We can also add a shadow to Saturn and calculate the elliptical trajectory of the satellite. As a result we get such animation

POSTED BY: Alexander Trounev

Jeffrey Bryant

Jeffrey Bryant, Wolfram|Alpha, LLC

Posted 6 years ago

Nice approximation. I'm assuming you chose arbitrary initial positions for the moons and also ignored eccentricity and inclination? Trying to compute actual positions of the moons, taking into account perturbations, etc is quite challenging. Also, I'm curious how you simulated the shadow on the rings.

POSTED BY: Jeffrey Bryant

Martinos Starzewski

Posted 6 years ago

Very nice simulation. It might be improved by making the rings fractal-like, see e.g. J. Li and M. Ostoja-Starzewski, Edges of Saturns rings are fractal, arXiv: 1207.0155, 2012. SpringerPlus 4, 158, 2015. A. Malyarenko and M. Ostoja-Starzewski, Fractal planetary rings: Energy inequalities and random field model, Int. J. Modern Physics B 31(30), 1750236 (14 pages), 2017.

POSTED BY: Martinos Starzewski

Carl Sutherland

Posted 6 years ago

Very nicely done!

POSTED BY: Carl Sutherland

Daniel Bigham

Daniel Bigham, Wolfram Research

Posted 6 years ago

Great Scott! This is sweet!

POSTED BY: Daniel Bigham

Christian Pasquel

Christian Pasquel, Wolfram Blockchain Labs

Posted 6 years ago

That's amazing Jeff!

POSTED BY: Christian Pasquel

Jeffrey Bryant

Jeffrey Bryant, Wolfram|Alpha, LLC

Posted 6 years ago

FWIW, I have updated the movie and the post to use a new texture for the planet itself. The new texture will be available from EntityValue in a couple weeks and shows the north polar "hexagon" seen in the Cassini imagery.