What did you change in the model?
Labs / Astronomy
Build an Orbit
Drag out from the probe hovering above the planet to aim its launch velocity, then let go and gravity does the rest. Set the speed and altitude, and watch the same inverse-square pull draw a tidy circle, a stretched ellipse, or a one-way escape hyperbola. The readouts name the conic from the orbit's energy and eccentricity.
Labs / Astronomy / Build an Orbit
Build an Orbit
Drag out from the probe hovering above the planet to aim its launch velocity, then let go and gravity does the rest. Set the speed and altitude, and watch the same inverse-square pull draw a tidy circle, a stretched ellipse, or a one-way escape hyperbola. The readouts name the conic from the orbit's energy and eccentricity.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Astronomy uses patterns in light and motion to explain objects we cannot touch directly. This model lets you change one part of a space system and see what the evidence would look like.
Explore
Try the model
e 0.00peri 0 kmapo 0 kmEllipse
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- What exact speed turns the ellipse into a perfect circle — and does that speed change when you raise the altitude?
- Aim the arrow straight up instead of sideways. Where does the probe go, and why does it come right back?
- Nudge the speed higher and higher: at what point does the orbit stop closing on itself and the energy readout flip its sign?
- Can you set a periapsis height below zero? What happens to the probe when its lowest point dips beneath the surface?
- For a fixed speed, how does starting higher up change the shape and eccentricity of the orbit you get?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Look for a cause-and-effect rule: what did you change, what responded, and what stayed the same? Astronomers use those patterns to infer how distant systems work.
Check
Before you leave
What visible evidence changed?
What rule could explain that change?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.