Steps

1. First, think of how many stars there are in your system. One, two, five?
2. What are the star's/stars' types? O, B, A, F, G, K, M, L, T, or Y? Maybe WR or D?
3. Next, think of how many planets you want. Remember, solar systems can have just one planet, or even twenty-seven.
4. Now think how many moons you want in your solar system, there are 75 major moons, and a total of about 170 in our solar system.
   • Do you want dwarf planets? Should you label the major asteroids?
5. Make a list of the previous 3 steps on in outline-like format
   • Next what sizes are your planets? You can go by radii of our planets, miles, or kilometers. Add reasonable masses.
   • What are the planet types? Gas giant, Sub-gas giant (Uranus or Neptune), terrestrial or ice planet.
   • How far are they from the star?
6. Add orbital eccentricities and inclination (if you want, add longitude of acsending node)
7. Draw the orbits or, import your system to Gravity Simulator, Universe Sandbox, AstroGrav, Astro Synthesis, or your favorite space simulator.

Tips

• You may want to put your masses, radius, and orbital elements into a graph.
• If you cant think of names, you may want to make your system while on Astro Synthesis, or label them with naming conventions, (the conventions make them seem more spacey and sciencey). Say your star is Halak (KKL-078). You name your three planets Halak b, Halak c, and Halak d, either in order of distance, mass or any other order you can think of. You may do it with roman numerals instead, but I'd rather save that for the moons. For example, the moons of Halak c are: Halak c I (c I for short), c II, c III, and c IV.
• Most binary systems are far binaries and planets only orbit one of the stars (at once, not around both at one time, only two of many extrasolar planets in binaries orbit both stars). There may be planets around both or all stars in your system if you like.

Warnings

• There may be some, but none are known of.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Pen
• Universe Sandbox, AstroGrav, Astro Synthesis, or Gravity Simulator (optional)
• A creative imagination (also optional)

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