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Galactic Tide & the Oort Cloud Loss Cone

Watch the Milky Way's own gravity, not a passing star, secularly pump the eccentricity of Oort Cloud comet orbits until their perihelion dips inside the loss cone -- direct 3D orbit integration under the galactic tidal force.

Space & Astronomy3DAdvanced60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 2D version

Passing stars get most of the attention, but the Milky Way's own disk exerts a steady, always-on tidal pull on the Oort Cloud. This simulator integrates 200 comet-sized bodies in real 3D under the Sun's gravity plus the linear galactic tidal acceleration derived from the local stellar density, and lets you watch each orbit's perihelion distance rock up and down over tens of millions of simulated years until it dips into the loss cone — the mechanism believed to supply a steady background rate of long-period comets even between chance stellar encounters. Adjust the local density, the tilt of the galactic plane, playback speed and the loss-cone threshold, and track live readouts of elapsed time, how many bodies currently sit inside the loss cone, and the population's mean perihelion.

⚙ Under the hood

Directly integrate 200 Oort Cloud bodies in 3D under the Sun's gravity plus the Milky Way's own vertical tidal force, and watch each orbit's perihelion oscillate over tens of millions of years until it dips into the giant-planet loss cone.

Oort cloudgalactic tideorbital mechanicslong-period cometsN-body integrationloss cone

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install