Orbiting between moons Mimas and Tethys, Enceladus circles Saturn from about 148,000 miles away. It takes about 33 hours for it to complete one orbit. Like our own moon, Enceladus is tidally locked with Saturn, meaning that the same side always faces the planet. It also has what's called...
While the moon is orbiting the Earth, the Earth is progressing in its orbit around the Sun. After completing a sidereal month the Moon must move a little further to reach the new position having the same angular distance from the Sun. This longer period is called the synodic month (Greek:...
GIF There are more than 23,000 objects orbiting the earth that count as “space junk”. Thankfully, space is huge and these objets are all really far apart… for now. GIF There’s an Earth-like planet called 55 Cancri e, which is made of diamonds. ...
The three-body problem is the challenge of predicting the behavior of three interacting bodies. Isaac Newton’s gravity equations work great for predicting the behavior oftwoorbiting bodies, such as the earth and the moon, but add one more body to the mix, whether a spacecraft, comet, moon,...