Orbiting and Colliding Galaxies 3D Model Documents

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Main Document

Orbiting and Colliding Galaxies 3D Model 

written by Robbie Mitchell

The Orbiting and Colliding Galaxies 3D Model is a three-dimensional extension of the Alar and Juri Toomres' 1972 supercomputer model of colliding galaxies.  This model assumes that galactic centers are point masses and the orbiting stars do not interact with each other (the galactic cores interact with each other and the individual stars). Unlike the Toomres' model (and the Colliding Galaxies model by Christian and Lim), both galactic cores begin with a compliment of stars orbiting their respective cores. These stars start in a 3-D circular orbit about the center of each galaxy in one plane. When the two galaxies pass each other they produce the long spiraling tails.

The Orbiting and Colliding Galaxies Model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the ejs_comp_phys_colliding_galaxies3d.jar file will run the program if Java is installed.

Last Modified June 11, 2014

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Supplemental Documents (3)

Poster Presentation 

Physics 200 poster presented during the 2011 Davidson College student research symposium.

Published June 15, 2011
Last Modified June 15, 2011

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Orbiting and Colliding Galaxies 2D Model 

Two Dimensional Version of the 3D model.

Published June 15, 2011
Last Modified July 1, 2011

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The Mice: Colliding Galaxies in 3D 

This is a special case of the Orbiting and Colliding Galaxies 3D Model with initial conditions specifically set to mimic The Mice.

Published June 15, 2011
Last Modified July 1, 2011

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Source Code Documents

Colliding and Orbiting Galaxies 3D Source Code 

The source code zip archive contains an XML representation of the Colliding and Orbiting Galaxies 3D Model.   Unzip this archive in your Ejs workspace to compile and run this model using Ejs.

Published June 15, 2011
Last Modified July 1, 2011

This file has previous versions.