Hi everyone! This section of my website was created with the purpose to teach high-school students, prospective undergraduate researchers and just about anyone who is interested in learning Python. Below I share my favorite script which you can download, run, and modify. More code can be found on my GitHub. If you are new to Python, do not worry, on the right I share links on how to install Python, and a useful documentation. If questions, or would like a similar report (like the one below) to the other code on my GitHub, please reach out to me. Have fun coding!
Note: The code presented below is written using Python 2.7. If you are running a newer version of python you might expect errors. I highly encourage you use the latest version of python and modify the code below. Errors encountered from using a newer version of python are not too complex.
Simulation of Interacting Galaxies: M51 and NGC 5195
The beautiful spiral structure of the Whirlpool galaxy (M51) is believed to have formed after interacting with neighboring dwarf galaxy, NGC 5195. The short clip above was created by using a modified version of the GALAXY code in (Carroll and Ostlie, 2007) which is similar to the galaxy interaction code in Toomre & Toomre (1972) . The video was created using FFmpeg which I can help you install. Please, play around with the various parameters in the code and analyze the different morphological structures created. Code. Report on code.