[TML] The proper year length of a super jovian

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 2/4/08 1:21 PM, "Anthony Jackson" <ajackson at iii.com> wrote:

> Knapp wrote:
> 
>> My question for all you space experts is what is meant by
>> "Significant" here?
> 
> Massive enough that you care about the error margin. For typical gaming
> purposes, where you've only got 1-2 significant figures, a factor of ten
> or so will do the job.

As Gary's post showed, you want as large a difference as the number of
significant digits you'd like (factor of 100 for 2 digits).  I'd call 2
significant digits a *minimum*.

> Of course, this assumes a two body system. If there are three or more
> massive bodies in the system, the problem gets much nastier.

Given the distances necessary for a reasonably stable arrangement, a system
of multiple large bodies can pretty much be treated as a hierarchy, with
close bodies treated as a unit with reference to more distant bodies.