Restricted Three-Body Problem in a Plane
Restricted Three-Body Problem in a Plane
This Demonstration shows two examples of the restricted planar three-body problem. One is like the Earth-Sun-Moon system, in which two bodies have small mass relative to the third. The second is like the Sun-Jupiter-asteroid system, in which one body has a small mass relative to the other two. In general, such systems will exhibit chaotic behavior.
Several types of trajectories and the approach to the chaotic regime are shown.