THREE-BODY PROBLEM

Three stars of nearly equal mass in a chaotic gravitational dance. Every now and then a tiny asteroid drifts into the system (mass ~10⁻⁶ of a star).

The butterfly effect: the translucent blue "ghosts" are an exact copy of the system — but without asteroids. Watch how, after each asteroid flyby, the real stars drift away from their ghosts: first by pixels, then entirely.

real stars (with asteroids)
ghost twin (unperturbed)
asteroids
simulation time0
asteroids so far0
asteroids now0
divergence from ghost0.00

log₁₀ divergence over time