Questions tagged [orbital-motion]
The path a body takes while moving through space under the influence of the gravitational forces of other bodies
356 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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Regularization: What is so special about the Coulomb/Newtonian and harmonic potential?
I wanted to know if the procedure for regularization of the Coulomb potential outlined in Celletti (2003): Basics of regularization theory could be generalized to arbitrary polynomial potentials. So ...
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What's the cause of this gap in this simulation of the Nice model?
A previous question brought me to this video (which has a spectacular change at about 0:34). It shows the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and what appear to be trans-Neptunian objects.
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How did Kepler arrive at his laws?
How did Kepler arrive at his laws? If one already knows the distances to the planets (and the eccentricity of the orbits, etc.), it is understandable that one might proceed to establish Kepler's ...
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Examples of central forces on the path of orbit?
In solving a problem from Goldstein (3.13), I solved for multiple properties of a circular orbit with the attractive central force where the path of orbit crosses the point of the force (at origin).
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are alignment of star systems' orbital planes with ours better than random?
It obviously helps our observation of exoplanets if they transit their star from our point-of-view. I would guess that the chances of this alignment are better than if their orbital plane was randomly ...
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Fully General Relativistic treatment of Galaxy Rotation Curve
Over the years I have seen several approaches to this problem in the GR context: perturbations around a flat-spacetime, cancelation by hand of $\mathcal{O}(\partial_{\mu}\textbf{g}^{2})$ terms on the ...
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Closed trajectories for Kepler problem with classical spin-orbit corrections?
Kepler problem explains closed elliptic trajectories for planetary systems or in Bohr's classical atomic model - let say two approximately point objects, the central one has practically fixed position,...
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Why does planetary spin affect the stability of orbits?
Reading about the Hill Sphere I notice that "the region of stability for retrograde orbits at a large distance from the primary, is larger than the region for prograde orbits at a large distance from ...
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Confusion about Post-Newtonian orbital motion (Damour-Deruelle)
In their famous paper in 1985 (link), Damour&Deruelle describe the orbital motion for a binary system taking into account first-order post-Newtonian corrections (1PN). The solution is given in ...
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From Newton to Kepler without infinitesimals
I've read some interesting calculus-free proofs of at least parts of the derivation of Kepler's Laws from Newton's gravitational force.
One is of course Feyman's "Lost Lecture" (which was already ...
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Approximation of Nearly Circular Orbit by a Precessing Ellipse
I am self-studying the 3rd edition of Goldstein's Classical Mechanics and have hit a roadblock when working a problem (Chapter 3, Problem 20). The problem asks us to consider a planet of mass $m$ ...
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Can light orbit an object that is NOT a black hole?
I know that light can enter into an unstable circular orbit around a black hole, at a distance of its innermost bound circular orbit (IBCO) $\frac{3r_s}{2}$ where $r_s$ is the Schwarzschild radius of ...
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The causes of the nodal precession of a satellite in Earth orbit?
All artificial satellites in Earth orbit between the polar orbit and the equatorial orbit are subject to a nodal precession caused by the equatorial bulge of the Earth at the equator.
How the ...
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Precession of a closed orbit under a central force other than the inverse square force
Consider the motion of a closed orbit in a central force field ${\bf F}({\bf r})$ other than the inverse square force i.e., $${\bf F}({\bf r})\neq -\frac{k}{r^2}\hat{\bf r}.$$
However, since ${\bf F}({...
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Is the white sky of Stephanson's novel "SevenEves" plausible?
Based on comments, would the moderators please move this to Astronomy.SE?
In the novel, some agency disrupts the moon. The moon is left in 7 major chunks that are still gravitationally bound. (...
