AiS Challenge Team Abstract

Team Number: 003

School Name: Albuquerque Academy

Area of Science: Astrophysics

Project Title: Simulating Solar System Formation Theories

The goal of this project is to simulate and study a new theory for the formation of our solar system. The theory states that our solar system was formed in the violent environments that also form massive stars. The theory is based upon chemical analysis, and, to the best of our knowledge, has yet to be simulated properly.

Our team hopes to create a simulation that will accurately model an environment similar to that proposed by the theory. To successfully test the theory, our program will need to model:

We intend to execute these parts in succession , testing them against astronomical data and studying the results with an OpenGL visualization. A large number of variables will arise in the four simulations. These variables define the kind of solar system that our simulation will create. The final part of our program will use a genetic algorithm to set these variables to values that would create a solar system similar to ours. With this process, we hope to isolate the necessary assumptions in the theory, as well as determine the probability of its creating solar systems similar to our own.

Our program will be written in C++ with MPI, and maintained on a CVS tree.

References:
A Summary of the Theory

Team Members

Sponsoring Teacher(s)

Project Mentor(s)
Pending...