Questions tagged [orbit]
Questions regarding an object 'falling around' another object, due to a combination of gravity and momentum.
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How does our Earth's movement affects it's climate? [closed]
I'm trying to solve this task:
The Earth passes the perihelion of its orbit at the beginning of January, and the aphelion at the beginning of July. Explain how this affects the climate. (Note. Start ...
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2answers
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Why doesn't Triton orbit over Neptune's equator?
In this answer, I wrote (on another account) why most moons orbit over their planet's equator.
Any rotating planet has an equatorial bulge that shifts its moons' orbits around its equator over long ...
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1answer
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Confused on how you are supposed to calculate eccentricity without apsides
I'm kinda confused on how to calculate either the apsides or the eccentricity without knowing one or the other. Let's say you have an object in orbit around another. If you know the current distance, ...
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1answer
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Retrograde and Crescent Phases Visibility on Mars
So I saw this question online
If you lived on Mars, which planets would describe retrograde loops? Which would never be visible as crescent phases?
And on a few QA website I searched, they gived ...
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1answer
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What if a component of a binary star lies in the center of it's orbit and not in the focus?
I'm trying to solve this task:
Observing a visual binary star with a highly elongated elliptical orbit for a long time, the astronomer noticed that the bright component lies in the center of the ...
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2answers
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Is it possible for a planet to heat up its moon to habitable temperatures solely through infrared radiation?
Stars are powered by nuclear fusion and the energy released radiates through their surface as heat. But all objects radiate away some form of electromagnetic radiation depending on their temperature.
...
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Is Jupiter warming the Earth? (Earth, Sun Jupiter system)
If Sun-Jupiter baricentre is outside the Sun, does that mean the Sun is orbiting around that point too right?
Then the Sun shouldn't be nearer to the Earth at some point during the Sun-Jupiter orbit (...
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4answers
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Can a satellite stay in one place but not above equator? [closed]
I know that there are geostationary satellites that are always seen in one place in the sky and that they all are located in the equatorial area. I wonder if it's possible for a satellite to "...
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1answer
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Are there automatic methods to locate (stellar and supermassive) black holes?
Black holes have been discovered using several techniques, as outlined by How are black holes found?. What I was wondering is: are there automatic methods for locating them (e.g., artificial ...
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1answer
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Best way to procedurally generate an orbit given mass and eccentricity
As stated here, I've badly expressed my problem and have made what we call a XY problem (the question was well answered nonetheless) so I restate the question. Sorry for the inconvenience
I have a 2D ...
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2answers
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Given mass, position and eccentricity, is there a way to get initial velocity in a 2-body problem?
I know that the we can get the eccentricity vector like that: $\mathbf{e} = \frac{\mathbf{v} \times \mathbf{h}}{\mu} - \frac{\mathbf{r}}{\|\mathbf{r}\|}$ (source: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/...
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Are the major-axis of Mars and Earth orbits on the same plane?
Which means that I can draw an imaginary plane that contains the major-axis of both Earth and Mars.
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Do all the orbits of planets in the Solar system fit in a (imaginary) cone?
So that all the elliptic orbits can be seen as slices from the cone while the sun is a shared focus.
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What's the formula for change in argument of periapsis over time due to J2 perturbations for a geocentric satellite?
I'm trying to propagate the orbit of the ISS, but it became very clear to me very quickly that the J2 perturbations were nothing to scoff at.
A quick google search gave me the equation for the change ...
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3answers
161 views
Why doesn't the Moon fall out of orbit?
If you need to boost ISS to stay in orbit why moon doesn't fall down to earth and KABOOM?
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Is there a formula for a planet's orbit in a 3D space?
I'm trying to model the orbits of Earth and Mars and their positions at a given point in time. But I can only find 2D equations of elliptic orbits, which only contain the x and y variables. I have to ...
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2answers
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How to calculate eclipses on a planet in a binary star system
I posted this question on the physics page but decided it might be best if I post it here instead as it may be a more astronomy related question. I also haven't received any answers over there so far ...
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1answer
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The Sun's motion around the galaxy [duplicate]
As the Sun orbits the Milky Way, I understand that it also moves up and down through the plane of the Galaxy. How long does this movement take and can we tell where we are in the current cycle.
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Is the barycenter of the solar system usually outside of the sun?
I came across this picture on wikipedia:
Note: From a quick search I gathered that although there are slight differences between the limb of the sun and the accepted radius of the sun, these ...
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1answer
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Are we able to accurately predict planetary orbits over a longer period of time?
I was wondering whether planetary orbits can be predicted with our classical theories, or whether quantum randomness comes into play making the unpredictable in the long run?
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1answer
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Is the 'spin' of Earth and the 'spin' of Mars a significant contribution to their angular momentum?
Is the 'spin' of Earth and the 'spin' of Mars taken into account as a contribution to the conservation of angular momentum? (and a contribution to the increasing/decreasing eccentricity?) Or - is the ...
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1answer
91 views
When will Mercury have rotated an extra round around its axis?
It is well known that Mercury orbits slightly differently from a pure Newtonian orbit. Every year a slight deviation is found.
Now if we observe a lot of these orbits then Mercury should at one point ...
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Degrees of freedom in restricted circular coplanar three body problem
How many degrees of freedom does a mechanical system consisting of three bodies, the Sun, Jupiter and an asteroid, have in the restricted circular coplanar problem of the three bodies?
I know that if ...
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Orbital resonance 2:1
I considered the motion of an asteroid around the sun, in a $2:1$ orbital resonance with Jupiter. Following the study of this resonance, it was observed that the angle between the major axis of the ...
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1answer
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Can someone explain to me the TEME reference frame in defining orbital coordinates?
I am undertaking a project of developing a "surface station" for my desktop, which will track the position of different satellites as they fly overhead. I have zero background in ...
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2answers
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Can we see the south Pole of the Moon standing on North Pole of the Earth
As the Moon's orbit is inclined to Earth's Equator and radius of earth is only 6350Km but Moon is 385000Km away, we should be able to see the south pole of the Moon from below- i.e standing on North ...
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Why collisions between earth orbiting satelites do occur?
According to Kepler laws all earth orbiting satellites should have the same velocity. So how can they collide?
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2-body orbits expanding in nbody simulation?
Recently, I designed an n-body engine and tested it with a binary star system. After a minute of running, the orbit began noticeably expanding:
Why is it happening, and is this natural? The source ...
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Calculating Angle Between Two Planets In Heliocentric Orbit
My goal is to calculate the retrograde of Mercury. What I've been working from is the book, Practical Astronomy With Your Calculator 3rd edition. I've made some progress, but I seem to be stuck with ...
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Wrong planet orbit
I would like to calculate Mercury's orbit in Mathematica. My initial conditions, in AU and AU/year, are:
...
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2answers
2k views
What is the difference between the two terms named "Eccentricity" and "Ellipticity"?
I don't get the difference between the two terms named "Eccentricity" and "Ellipticity", especially, in astronomy. I understand eccentricity as a measure of the curvature of a ...
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0answers
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Planets orbit fitting
I would like to fit planets orbits. To do this, I need a set of mock observations. I can get them from right ascension/declination obtained from the Horizons interface:
EDIT:
Horizons gives me a list ...
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1answer
89 views
Where can I find a list of retrograde Milky Way stars?
I read in papers that the Milky Way contains some retrograde stars (retrograde to the Milky Way rotation). Does anybody know where I can find a list of them, possibly including data on their distance ...
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1answer
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What is the longitude of the winter solstice for the various planets?
I am looking for data showing the longitude at which the various planets in the solar system reach their winter solstice. Where could I find this data?
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What is the period of the 'cycle' of Earth's ecliptic variation, relative to the 'invariable plane'? 70,000 or 100,000 years?
The plane of Earth's path around the Sun, the ecliptic, is different from the average of the solar system's as a whole (the invariable plane) by about 1.57°....
Our path around the Sun, though, goes ...
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3answers
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Asteroids conjunction
I am currently writing a C++ program to show asteroids in 3D, and find close approaches or collisions. I got my orbital elements from JPL https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb_query.cgi. So far so good, with ...
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2answers
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Is S2 still the fastest known star in the galaxy?
Wikipedia's entry for the star S2 says that it has
the fastest known ballistic orbit, reaching speeds exceeding 5,000
km/s (11,000,000 mph, or 1⁄60 the speed of light) and acceleration of
about 1.5 ...
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1answer
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Orbit of Luhman 16?
I am studying some binary stars and brown dwarfs. Some orbits are known and easy to find, like Alpha Centauri. However, when I look for the orbital characteristics of Luhman 16 (AB), I only get the ...
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What is the longest natural bound orbit chain observed?
Define a bound orbit chain as a list of successively less massive bodies, each in a bound orbit with the bodies preceding it in the list.
Then an example of a bound orbit chain would be: <Sun, ...
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1answer
439 views
How to find the shape of an orbit
What is the minimum information I need to be able to draw the shape of an orbit of a body that orbits the sun? With this information how can I figure out the shape of its orbit?
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1answer
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How can I find the width of an orbit knowing some values?
I need to find the width/x-radius of an orbit, which is ellipse shaped, knowing variables like the orbit's length(perihelion + aphelion in this case) and the eccentricity. I am not sure if this is ...
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3answers
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Computing the rate of orbital decay
We know that the estimated time until a binary system merges is given by: $$\dfrac{5c^5r^4}{256G^3(m_1m_2)(m_1+m_2)}$$ But what is the formula to determine rate of decay, in some sort of distance unit,...
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2answers
251 views
What is the thickness of the Solar System disk?
What is the thickness in AU of the all planets' orbital plane height combined in the Solar System?
Excluding Pluto.
Looking for h
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1answer
63 views
Prograde to retrograde orbital path
Is there a planet or planetary moon flyby path that could send a solar prograde orbiting asteroid into a retrograde solar orbit?
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What makes a star? [closed]
What are the properties of a star? How do astronomers classify the properties of stars?
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2answers
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Do moons experience periods of no sunlight when orbiting "behind" their planet?
I'm writing a story that takes place on the Saturn moon Iapetusand I was thinking that especially since Iapetus only has an inclination of about 17 degrees from the ecliptic, wouldn't there be a point ...
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Visual binary star with circular apparent orbit
Does anyone know a good example of visual (or interferometric) binary star apparent orbit of which looks circular due to projection though in fact is markedly elliptical? I need that for teaching.
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1answer
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Fate of a planet orbiting a Lagrange point behind a star?
Let's say there is a planet orbiting at L5 behind a star, which is in turn orbiting a more massive star, like so:
What is the ultimate fate of this planet? I'm predicting that it will spiral into the ...
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If the Sun disappeared, could some planets form a new orbital system?
If the sun were to suddenly disappear, the planets would continue to travel tangentially to their former orbits. (This I know from this answer to a somewhat related question here.)
In such a scenario, ...
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1answer
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How long before Phobos reaches the Roche limit of Mars?
Phobos orbits really close to Mars, so close that one Phobos period is shorter than one sol. Due to tidal friction, it is also getting closer and closer to Mars. How much time will it take before ...
