Following are the equations I use to update the position of the first planet.

v final = v initial + a × t (1)

v final = v initial + F × t m (2)

x final = x initial + v final × t (3)

By expressing and calculating velocity, force, and position in terms of x, y, and z coordinates, we can plot them in a three-dimensional coordinate system. In order to use Equation (2) above to update the velocity, we need to calculate the forces between the planet and the star using Newton’s Gravitational law. G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the star, and m is the mass of the planet.

F → = G × M × m r 2 r ^ (4)

To use Equation (4) and to express and calculate force in terms of x, y, and z direction, we need to calculate the Euclidean distances in x, y, and z direction.

The force in x direction is given by

F x = F × r x r × r ^

Similarly, the force in y and z direction can be calculated using the method above.

As a result, we can calculate the velocity in terms of x, y, and z direction and then update the position in terms of x, y, and z direction.

We can use the new position to calculate the new forces between celestial bodies and then use the new forces to update the velocity and position in x, y, and z direction again.

In this process, knowing the mass of the celestial bodies, the only variation that I need is the initial velocity and the initial Euclidean distance between the two celestial bodies.

All the methods mentioned above allow us to simulate the motion of many celestial bodies. To get a graph about the motion of many celestial bodies, we can record every position that the celestial bodies pass through.

I randomly set some properties of celestial bodies to check whether my simulation can work (see Table 1).

In order to make the planets orbit around the star, we need to know something about the initial velocity:

If

v initial = G M r × r ^ ,

planets will have a circular orbit.

If

G M r × r ^ < v initial < 2 G M r × r ^ ,

planets will have an elliptical orbit.

If

v initial = 2 G M r × r ^ ,

planets will have a hyperbolic orbit and it will escape from the gravitational field of the star.

The formulas for explanation are as follows:

The orbital velocity:

F c = F g

m v 1 2 r = G M m r 2

v 1 = G M r

The escape velocity:

K E = U

1 2 m v 2 2 = G M m r

v 2 = 2 G M r

And then I make a graph to check.

In reality, most of the orbits of celestial bodies are ellipses instead of circle. And the central celestial bodies will at one focus of the ellipse. To calculate the initial velocity of the celestial bodies, we need to use some formulas of ellipse.

The semi-major axis is a, the semi-minor axis is b, and the focal length is c.

Eccentricity:

e = c a

semi-minor axis:

b 2 = a 2 − c 2

Area of ellipse:

area = π a b

For a line between the star and the planet, the line will sweep out an area as the planet moves around the star for a small angle d θ the area will be:

d A = 1 2 × ( a − c ) 2 × d θ

As a result, the initial velocity can be calculated by combining the formulas above using Kepler’s second law:

d A d t = 1 2 × ( a − c ) 2 × d θ d t = π a b period

1 2 × ( a − c ) × v initial = π a b period

v initial = 2 π a × a 2 × ( 1 − e 2 ) period × ( a − e × a )

Actually, we can apply all the things mentioned in this section on celestial bodies which have circular orbit. The eccentricity of a circle is 0 and the semi-major axis is the radius of a circle. The formula of calculating the initial velocity of a circular-orbit planet will be:

v initial = 2 × π × radius × radius 2 × ( 1 − 0 2 ) period × ( radius − 0 × a )

v initial = 2 × π × raidus period = perimeter time

So we only need the semi-major axis, eccentricity, and the period to calculate the initial velocity.

The period of a planet is not constant because of the gravitational effects due to other planets. The period variation is one kind of transit timing variation.

In order to know the differences between periods, I plot periods in a graph in a relatively long time. The way I calculate one period for a particular planet is to record every time when one of the planet passes from negative to positive. And then I calculate the differences between every two record time, which show us the periods of the planets. I randomly choose some data to draw the graph. See Table 2.

To draw a light curve of the star, we need the relationship between the area blocked by the transiting planet and the surface area of the star that we can observe when it is not covered by the planet. To calculate the relationship between these two areas, we need to establish a two-dimensional system and put the center of the star at the origin. Let the distance between the center of the planet and the center of the star be d (see Figure 2) d = position star − position planet . Because the radius of the orbit of the planet is relatively small compared to the distance between the whole system and the observer, we can let the radius of the planet be R p and let the radius of the star be R s . Also because the arc is relatively small compared to the perimeter of the orbit, we can consider the velocity that planet moves toward the star as the linear velocity of the planet. The method of calculating the star’s area that is blocked by the planet is changing with respect to the change in the relative position of the planet and the star.

There are six conditions that need different methods to calculate the blocked area shown in Figure 3.

1) when the planet is not blocking the star: area = 0;

2) when d ≤ − ( R s + R p ) and d ≥ − R s ;

3) when d < − R s and d ≥ d > − ( R s − R p ) ;

4) when d > − ( R s − R p ) and;

5) when and;

6) when and.

An example of calculating the blocked area is as follow.

In condition 2 shown in Figure 4, the blocked area = area 1 + area 2. We can calculate the sectorial area of the star and the planet first. And then we can calculate area1 by subtract the sectorial area of the star with triangle OAB, and use the same method to calculate area 2.

We can use some similar methods to calculate the areas in other conditions.

Using different methods in these conditions, I get the light curve of the star (see Figure 5).

I use the data of Kepler-19 of Wikipedia (shown in Table 3) to run my program assuming that all the orbits of the Kepler-19 system are in the same plane. Following are my results (see Figures 6-8).