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Investigating The Stability Of Observed Low Semi-Major Axis Exoplanetary Systems With Hypothetical Outer Planets Using The Program Mercury6, Kendall Butler
Investigating The Stability Of Observed Low Semi-Major Axis Exoplanetary Systems With Hypothetical Outer Planets Using The Program Mercury6, Kendall Butler
Honors College
This project investigates the stability of observed planetary systems, and whether this stability remains in the presence of additional outer planets. This made use of the program Mercury6, an n-body integrator that computes the changes in planetary orbits over time. The Systems HD 136352, GJ 9827, and HD 7924 were studied with initial conditions taken from the available observational data. This information was curated using the online NASA Exoplanet archive of confirmed exoplanets. With these initial conditions, Mercury6 computed the changing planetary orbits of each system for 5 million years. For each of these systems, a single outer planet, which …