Yes. I can’t find a good intuitive reason why orbits are elliptical. In fact, I can’t even find a mathematical derivation. So, because it should be found somewhere, I’ll leave the derivation floating in the answer gravy. Answer gravy: The force of gravity is usual...
Why are galaxies different shapes? How do the orbits of comets differ from planetary orbits? How are comets, asteroids, and meteors different? How are supernovae involved in new planet formation? Why does an elliptical galaxy look like one giant star? Why are there comets in the Oort cloud...
The second of Newton's laws that apply to understanding gravity in physics resulted from Newton puzzling through another physicist's findings. He was trying to explain why the solar system's planets have elliptical orbits rather than circular orbits, as observed and mathematically described by Johann...
Here is the “we’ll talk about it later” part. We see more than one face (more than 50% of the surface of the moon). Because the moon’s orbit is slightly elliptical. This gives us peeks beyond its average eastern and western horizons. What’s more, the axis of the moon is til...
In young systems, you’ll have planets as large as the Earth, or even larger, with “dirty” neighborhoods, wereas in old systems, smaller and smaller bodies get their orbits cleaned up. Ceres might well become a planet some day, without changing the least bit. –Furthermore, due to ...
However, because the Earth’s orbit is elliptical, the angle we cover every day in our orbit changes. When we’re farther, the angle doesn’t change as fast, and the solar time gets a little ahead of standard time. When we’re closer, the angle changes faster and...
Comet Orbits:The orbits of comets are generally highly elliptical, sometimes only coming back into the inner solar system after tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Some of the comets we see have actually been captured by Jupiter's gravity and orbit this planet instead of the Sun. One ...
and that the earth and the planets moved in circular orbits around the sun. Nearly a century passed before Copernicus’ idea was taken seriously. Until 1609, the Italian, Galileo Galilei found that, with a telescope, the planet Jupiter was accompanied by several small satellites that orbited ar...
The system works because the middle layer of the atmosphere, which is normally ice cold, becomes permeable to water in certain locations and at certain times of year. This is due to the way that Mars orbits around the Sun, in a highly elliptical orbit which brings it much closer to the ...
There are three primary reasons for whysatellitesare not sent straight up and out of the solar system: (1) doing so would require the satellite to cancel out its motion in the direction of Earth’s orbit, which would use a great deal of fuel; (2) most of the interest...