Orbital math/tiny object orbits - questions

tony

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I just tried 2 golf balls (0.046 kg each) orbiting each other in Earth orbit with an SMA of 100,000 km. Their orbits are chaotic due to Earth's presence, but they complete a few orbits. Beyond 100,000 km, they're probably pretty stable. The period of their orbit around each other is about 8 hours. This is all consistent with their computed combined Hill Sphere of about 17 cm while at 100,000 km from Earth.
golf2.GIF
 

James.Denholm

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Ooooooh, curious. In other news, and relating to a few of the previous posts, I found out something very curious about Phobos, and was just wondering if anyone else had the same "problem":

The surface of Phobos in Orbiter isn't solid. There is, however, an invisible solid sphere below the surface.

I was using Burch's Pod 3.0 at the time, and I just went strait through the "surface", then bounced off something that I assume is a sphere. As stated above, it's not visible.
 

Quick_Nick

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If you are asking if Phobos is supposed to have spherical 'collision detection', then yes, it happens with everyone... at least until Artlav interferes. ;)
 
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