The Kuiper Belt object Altjira was thought to be a binary, but closer analysis suggests that it is highly likely to be a triple system This raises the question of the three-body problem; if Altjira ...

Everybody seems to be talking about 3 Body Problem, the new Netflix series based on Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past book trilogy. Fewer people are talking about the two series’ namesake: The ...

When three massive objects meet in space, they influence each other through gravity in ways that evolve unpredictably. In a word: Chaos. That is the conventional understanding. Now, a researcher has ...

Three-body problems—the analytical expressions of three celestial bodies in a stable orbit—have beguiled mathematicians for centuries. In 2017, Chinese mathematicians discovered more than a thousand ...

The question of how three objects can form a stable orbit around each other has troubled mathematicians for more than 300 years, but now researchers have found a record 12,000 orbital arrangements ...

Millions of simulations form a rough map of all conceivable outcomes when three objects meet, like a vast tapestry woven from the threads of initial configurations. This is where the isles of ...