This simulation shows the system of exoplanets orbiting the star Gliese 876.
It was created by making a new simulation, editing the name, color, radius, luminosity, and mass of the star to have the characteristics of Gliese 876, and then using the Edit / Add Object... command to add the four planets one at a time. The data for Gliese 876 and its four planets were taken from the following document:
This simulation was prepared on 14th September 2010.
If you set the system running, you can watch how it evolves, and see how the orbital elements of the four planets slowly change with the passage of time. If you use the Evolve / Settings... command to increase the time step to 100 days, you should be able to watch the orbital changes on the view window, particularly the precession caused by the interactions between the planets.
You can find out more from the following web page:
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