Showcase 11 · Orbital mechanics
Orbits
Hundreds of points circle a shared centre on their own orbits in real time, drawn as a gently tilted disc. As with planets, an outer lap takes longer than an inner one: angular speed falls with the square root of the orbital radius, exactly as Kepler's third law demands. Move the pointer across the stage to shift the centre; it follows the cursor with a soft delay.
The live demo needs JavaScript and canvas. Every explanation on this page reads without them.
- Points
- 0
- Frames/s
- –
- Physics
- Canvas 2D · CPU
How it works
Every point starts with its own radius, its own phase and a speed that scales with the square root of that radius, the relation from Kepler's third law. That is why the inner orbits rack up noticeably more laps. Position is a pure function of time: each frame adds the elapsed time and derives the location on the tilted orbital plane, drawn with a short trail of recent positions. There is nothing more to it: no physics loop, no collisions, no per-frame randomness. The colours come from the design tokens and follow the light or dark appearance; the pointer only sets the target the shared centre eases towards.