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Astronomy and Cosmology
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Calculating distances with an elliptical orbit
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[QUOTE="sunrah, post: 5495241, member: 365167"] Assuming you know the mass of the central star you can easily find the period and angular velocity of B2 using Kepler's third law. Unless masses B1 and B2 are very big, you can probably neglect these. This will allow you to find the coordinates of B2 after some time t seeing as you know the orbits. Of course you can do the same for B1. If you want to find the separation distance r[SUB]s[/SUB] between the two bodies at a given time. Then I might calculate position of B1 and B2 using polar coords, i.e. r[SUB]1[/SUB] = r(θ[SUB]1[/SUB]) and r[SUB]2[/SUB] = r(θ[SUB]2[/SUB]) where θ is angular displacement. then use the law of cosines r[SUB]s[/SUB][SUP]2[/SUP] = r[SUB]1[/SUB][SUP]2[/SUP] + r[SUB]2[/SUB][SUP]2[/SUP] - 2r[SUB]1[/SUB]r[SUB]2[/SUB]cos(θ[SUB]2[/SUB]-θ[SUB]1[/SUB]). perhaps this will work. [/QUOTE]
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Astronomy and Astrophysics
Calculating distances with an elliptical orbit
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