Spin Gravity in the Orbital Greenhouse

Rotating Habitat

Rotation rate 4.0 rpm

Station radius 50 m

Canopy height 1.8 m

Live Readouts

g at floor (wall)

0.00 m/s²

g at canopy top

0.00 m/s²

Gravity gradient across canopy

0.0 %

Coriolis ratio 2ωv/g (v = 0.5 m/s flow)

0.00

How it works

A rotating cylindrical habitat produces artificial gravity through centripetal acceleration. In the co-rotating frame of the station, a point at radius r from the spin axis feels an outward centrifugal acceleration:

g(r) = ω² r
ω = rotation rate in rad/s (rpm × 2π / 60)

Because plants grow "up" toward the spin axis, the canopy top sits at a smaller radius than its base at the outer wall. Effective gravity therefore drops across the canopy — a real design constraint absent on Earth, where g is uniform from floor to ceiling:

g_floor = ω² R
g_top   = ω² (R − h)
gradient = (g_floor − g_top) / g_floor

Any mass that moves radially inside the rotating frame — irrigation water, a falling seed, a person's arm — also feels the Coriolis pseudo-force, which deflects it sideways (tangentially) as it moves. For a free particle observed in a frame spinning at ω about the z-axis, the apparent 2D acceleration is:

ẍ = ω² x + 2ω ẏ
ÿ = ω² y − 2ω ẋ
(centrifugal term ω²r  +  Coriolis term −2ω × v)

The droplet button integrates exactly these equations from rest at the canopy top and traces the true curved path until it reaches the wall. A common spin-gravity design rule of thumb keeps the ratio 2ωv/g below roughly 0.3 for a given flow speed v, so that fluids and equipment behave predictably — larger radius and lower rpm both shrink this ratio, which is why realistic O'Neill-type habitats favor slow rotation over a large radius rather than fast rotation over a small one.

Crop canopy Water droplet path Spin axis

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