What does a rosette reveal? Its direction of closest approach changes between revolutions. Astronomers measured this Schwarzschild precession for S2 around Sagittarius A*. This page offers a simplified illustration and a separate leading-order estimate, not an observation fit or a full relativistic orbit solver.
What the controls and telemetry really calculate
The animation derives GM from 4π²a³/P² using the selected preset’s fixed period. Moving the semi-major-axis slider therefore changes the implied central mass; the displayed 4.154 million solar masses is not used to keep gravity fixed. Start at the farthest point, change one control at a time, then reset for a clear comparison.
The correction multiplies inward acceleration by 1 + 3GM/(rc²), rather than implementing all velocity-dependent relativistic terms. Its displayed precession estimate uses a separately fixed r_s. Turning the correction off does not zero that estimate.
Near closest approach, shown speed is multiplied by 1.25 and capped at the preset target. The fraction-of-light-speed display is separately capped at 0.15, and its Lorentz factor uses that clipped fraction. The redshift score adds gravitational redshift to this fraction, without a viewing angle or line-of-sight velocity; it is not a measured spectral redshift. ISCO markers describe the nonspinning circular-orbit reference, not a tidal-disruption calculation.
CSV timestamps are wall-clock seconds, not elapsed orbital years. Rows are sampled by trail length. An empty export currently inserts a fixed illustrative row; never interpret it as a live measurement. Preset labels and speed targets are scenario inputs, not source-verified catalog values.