Orbits Definition and 487 Threads

we know that planets revolve in elliptical orbits but Why should planets revolve in elliptical orbits?

Homework Statement A GPS satellite is put in a high circular orbit around the earth. The period of revolution is 8 hours. Calculate the radius r of the orbit, compared to the radius R of the earth. Homework Equations R[SIZE="1"]earth= 6.4 x 10^6 m...

I am sure this is a stupid question but can someone give me the equations for r(t) and theta(t) for an orbit an inverse square law (treating the central mass as being at rest). The books always seem to only give r(theta) i.e. the shape of the orbit but not the actual time evolution. Is it ever...

Homework Statement A spy satellite is in circular orbit around Earth. It makes one revolution in 6.02 hours. (Radius of the Earth=6.371 times 106 m) (a) How high above Earth's surface is the satellite? (b) What is the satellite's acceleration? Homework Equations v = sqrt(G*M Earth...

why does planets hav eliptical orbits (pls explain -not mathematically if posssible)

What type of orbit would be used for a scientific satellite which needs to take regular readings to measure changes in the concentration of ozone gas in the stratosphere over Antarctica?

I had no idea it took a month for the moon to orbit the earth. I thought it happened daily, and that's what gave us night. How do we get night?

When bohr gave his model of atom kepler's law already existed ... What made him think that the electrons revolve around the neucleus in circular orbits ? The obvious assumption that should have come to his mind looking at the analogy between the gravitational and electrostatic force should have...

i am a physics enthusiast studying general relativity on my own with the book: "Exploring Black Holes: Introduction to General Relativity" by Edwin F. Taylor and John Archibald Wheeler. I am having the hardest time with the fourth chapter of the book and especially the 4th question in that...

If the planets are forced into circular orbits by inertia and gravity, why are the orbits of comets oval shaped? What keeps them from entering the sun.

If CarlB (or anyone else) wants to compare his recent results to the relativistic orbits used to make predictions for black hole inspirals by the people who work on LIGO, LISA, VIRGO, TAMA, GEO etc., they are readily available on the web at Living Reviews in Relativity...

The orbits of the Magellanic Clouds about the Milky Way Galaxy have apparently been determined, and the two dwarf irregular galaxies are now about as close as they will get to the MW in their 2.2 billion year orbit. See p. 42 of "Our Growing, Breathing Galaxy" by Wakker and Richter, Scientific...

What is the effect (if any) of the sun's movement around the galactic center in relation to planetary orbits?

OK, I'm sure I must be doing something wrong here, because I've run into a seeming contradiction. Please refer to the image I've attached below: an ellipse with the center and a focus marked. If there is a massive body at point P, then an object can orbit in the ellipse shown. If I know the...

for ions with more than one proton ie. He+, Li2+ and Be3+, doesn't the extra charge factor into the equation? because it seems only the elementary charge is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_radius" , hence rendering it independent of amount of positive charge present.

Can't really figure out where to start. Any help would be appreciated. Homework Statement A 575 kg satellite is in a circular orbit at an altitude of 550 km above the Earth's surface. Because of air friction, the satellite eventually falls to the Earth's surface, where it hits the ground with...

I remember that electrons exist in the probability cloud that corresponds to the orbital they reside in, and according to the Pauli Exclusion Principle, they can't share spin in the same orbital. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, when the wavefunction is collapsed...

Hi all, Why is it that the planets in our solar system seem to orbit relatively in the same plane? ( or is it a misconception ?) Why can't our planets orbit like this : http://www.steve.gb.com/images/science/planetary.png" Thx.

Let's consider the motion of a test particle in a central field. Is the Coulomb potential, 1/r, the only one that produces a periodic motion? If no, is there a condition for periodicity to occur? Thanks, Michel

This is the latest question I've been stuck on. The Bohr model of the hydrogen atom pictures the electron as a tiny particle moving in a circular orbit about a stationary proton. In the n=2 orbit, the distance from the proton to the electron is 21.16e-11 m , and the linear speed of the...

Two small asteroids orbit each other in circular orbits. The distance between the centers of the two asteroids is 35 m. The mass of the larger asteroid is 3 x 10 6 kg and the mass of the smaller asteroid is 1.2 x 10 5 kg. a. )What is the magnitude of the gravitational force of interaction...

With the success of my effort to write the orbits of the Schwarzschild metric in "Cartesian" coordinates, (see https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=126996 ) it is now time to compute the orbits for Painleve coordinates. When I'm done, I will have an applet that allows the computation...

I was reading and came across an article which stated that all the planets orbitted the sun elliptically while the Earth was the only planet to orbit the sun in a circular motion... Is this true? Also what technology did we use to figure this out?? Thanks Vtas25

My Java applet gravity simulator http://www.gaugegravity.com/testapplet/SweetGravity.html draws beautiful orbits, however the GR simulation is very badly broken as one can tell when comparing it with Newton at long distances. The source code is at...

Hi, I have a question on calculating the period of a planet where I know the gravity at the equator and at the pole. Here is the known information for the planet: Planet radius: 6502 km Planet mass: 4.71 \ast 10^{24} kg An explorer, who weighs 191 lbs on earth, stands at the equator of this...

Is gravity a sufficient force to explain the movement of the Kuiper Belt around the sun?

Why is it that for the most part, all orbiting planets in our solar system orbit together on the same 2D plane. The same can be asked for the disk shape of all of the galaxies. (sp everywhere) Thanks, -scott

Hi guys Im currently investigating planetary orbits in maths and one of our problems is to prove that Pluto spends a good deal of its time inside the orbit of Neptune. If anyone could help that would be great. Thanks Kyle

Problem: "Let G be a group of permutations of a set S. Prove that the orbits of the members of S constitute a partition of S." I'm a little hazy on how to start this proof. I started by writing down the definition of the Orbit of any element in S. I'm guessing, so correct me if I'm...

Greetings, A thought occurs about a (possibly) fundamental pattern in nature. Why are there several scales of magnitude in which a smaller body spins, while orbitting a larger body? Examples. 1) A galaxy like the Milky Way has an orbital momentum around the core of its Local Cluster...

How many time take to the electron to "Travel" from a lower orbit to a higher one? does it take the same time to travel to the next energy lever or to jump 3 or 4 when hitted by a more energetic photon?? Or it only takes a Planck time since it was hit by the photon?

Hello, considering a Planet 1 and a Planet 2, where 1 is extremely heavier than 2 and 2 is going in Planet 1's orbit. Two questions 1) howto get the expression v = - G m2 m1 / r 2) if we consider the energy < 0, we can get to an expression as v < sqrt (2GM2 / r) howto get Vx and Vy...

I am reasonably familiar with conventional elliptical orbits under gravity but how do they change as orbital velocities get very fast and start approaching the speed of light? let us initially neglect any energy losses due to gravitational radiation. I have been searching the web for some time...

i know that if a star having planets dies, and becomes a black hole the planets continue to revolve around the black hole. how is it possible when the black hole sucks everything??:confused:

There is a warming cooling pulse in Earth’s life exemplified by tracks left from ancient glaciers to deserts once flush with flora and fauna. When did all this occur and why? Here’s what I think: Moon orbits Earth, Earth orbits Sun, Sun orbits Milky Way, Milky Way orbits ? Each event takes...

Now, the conventional way of viewing the solar system is that all the planets orbit the sun, but since you can declare anything at rest in space, can't you just as easily say that the sun is orbiting the earth, since it will appear that way if you hold the Earth at rest?

How does one derive the total energy in an elliptic orbit: E= - \frac{GMm}{2a} where a is the semi-major axis? I did manage to get the result for the special case of circular orbit, as v = \sqrt{\frac{GM}{R}} But the problem is that I can't figure out a way to express v in an elliptic...

F=mv^2/r and Geosynchronouse orbits? Help Guys! I’m having a mental block in understanding why geostationary satellites stay in the same place and don’t change orbits or simply fall out of the sky. I may be using inaccurate information so please vet any and all suppositions I make here...

Is a Halo Orbit, such as the one employed by the SOHO spacecraft , a powered orbit (requires corrective burns)?. L1 is unstable, but everything I Google about Halo Orbits seem to suggest that the spacecraft happily orbits the L1 point in a Halo Orbit without corrective burns. Does it do...

As someone who only studied first year physics and maths and have taken no interest in it since than I was rather surprised to wake up one morning and realize along with 99.5% of the population that I really had no idea how the planets orbits worked beyond the vague word ellipse which I didn't...

group theory : orbits hi. I'm trying to calculate the orbits of some simple groups. I have found many explanations of what they are, but no example calculations. does anyone have any ideas where to look. I'm trying to calculate the orbit of SO(3). thanks

Hi! I really don't even understand what this problem is talking about! If someone could just point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it! A satellite is placed in a noncircular orbit about the Earth. The farthest point of its orbit (apogee ) is 4 Earth radii from the center of...

I'm new to PF, but in the shotr time ( a little more than 24 hours) since I registered, I've enjoyed myself. Some people hear might (or might not) be interested in the following. In order to teach myself some Java, I have developed an interactive animation that shows orbits (timelike...

I've lost my Chemistry text :eek: and was wondering if anyone knew of any links that showed representations of what orbits may look like? In our halls I've seen wood models of 1p, 2p... but the text had MANY more and I can't remember the name even.

Why are orbits elliptical? Any ideas?

I have my doubt,solution and question in the attachment that followed.Thanks for anybody that spend some time on this question.

What are the probabilities of Earth like orbits, and solar systems like ours?

Do Electron orbits follow the curved space, created by the Nucleus, or is there an other explanitory reason?

More eccentric than others? is it because of the star they revolve around, the mass of the planet? And is there a limit to an eccentricity of a planet's orbit so it could support life, how much eccentricity is too much for the planet to be inhabitable? And is it true that it is easier to...

Most (about 70%) of the exo-planets we discovered has an eccentric orbit, could it have a non-eccentric planet orbiting the same sun? Also, does finding 70% of exo-planets having eccentric orbits imply our solar system is rare?