Discovered the Universe Sandbox today. Looks neat.
<blockquote><p><em>What is it?
Universe Sandbox is a fully interactive space simulator for Windows based PCs. Explore and experiment with our solar system, nearby stars, the Milky Way, or the local group of galaxies. It's easy to use, it's all to scale, and it includes a built-in tutorial and activities.
What's up with the bright colors?
You can set the color mode to paint the planets, moons, rings, and galaxies based on various properties. The velocity color mode paints the fast moving bodies red, medium speed bodies yellow, and slow moving bodies blue.
How real is this?
The sizes, masses, positions, velocities, and the force of gravity are all based on real world data. Distances are measured in meters, time in seconds, and mass in kilograms. The simulations are calculated using Newton's law of gravitation.
What 's it for?
Universe Sandbox will give you a better understanding of gravity, our Universe, and how it all works.
So I can simulate the solar system with all 160+ of its moons and then create a black hole and destroy it all?
Yep.
This video contains a number of clips that include:
- Saturn, its rings, and its moons
- Andromeda approaching the Milky Way in 2.5 billion years
- Our Solar System with an accurate portal of the asteroid belt
- All the planets, rings, and moons for size comparisons
- Uranus and its moons traveling around the sun
- Earth sized bodies (with trails) interacting
- Two swirling discs with large center masses (red & blue)
- Moon sized objects (different color modes)
- Interacting galaxies
- Moons orbiting and Earth sized body
- Small bodies colliding with Jupiter
- Aftermath of a galaxy collision (different color modes)
- Large space station exploding near an Earth-like body
- Saturn's rings being ripped part by a large planet
- Collision of moon sized bodies</em></p></blockquote>
Seems interesting enough to experiment with, but at an estimate, anyone without a related science/physics major would find it as boring as Tropico.
Download Universe Sandbox now at http://universesandbox.com/
(Video isn't appearing to agree with posting; might be an Admin-only thing. Whatever.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6shurn2 ... re=related
Spotted via StumbleUpon
