Gravity Well Education

thingiverse

I've been pondering how Objects with mass warp Spacetime, creating what's known as a gravity well. Two Objects attracting each other through gravity is similar to two bowling balls on a mattress rolling towards each other. Recently, I listened to the WTFFF Podcast and heard Tom Hazard discussing a 3D printed display of how gravity wells functioned. I wanted to print it but couldn't find the design. Then, I realized that I could simply design what I thought it would be in Blender using the attached photos to scale the size of planets and the size of gravity wells. The Center Rotation file depicts the Sun's gravity well and Jupiter's Gravity Well. The Saturn's rotation file shows a continuation of the Sun's gravity well and Saturn's Gravity well. I initially intended to create individual rotation cylinders for all 8 planets, but quickly recognized a flaw in my concept: plastic is static, whereas gravity wells are not. Furthermore, I hadn't thought of an effective way to depict elliptical orbits. I began wondering if depicting just the Earth and the moon's gravity wells in relation to each other could serve as a useful educational tool for anyone.