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An animation showing a low eccentricity orbit (near-circle, in red), and a high eccentricity orbit (ellipse, in purple). In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object [1] such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such ...
The lunar orbit's major axis – the longest diameter of the orbit, joining its nearest and farthest points, the perigee and apogee, respectively – makes one complete revolution every 8.85 Earth years, or 3,232.6054 days, as it rotates slowly in the same direction as the Moon itself (direct motion) – meaning precesses eastward by 360°.
One complete orbit takes 365.256 days (1 sidereal year), during which time Earth has traveled 940 million km (584 million mi). [2] Ignoring the influence of other Solar System bodies, Earth's orbit, also called Earth's revolution, is an ellipse with the Earth–Sun barycenter as one focus with a current eccentricity of 0.0167. Since this value ...
Ballistic capture orbit: a lower-energy orbit than a Hohmann transfer orbit, a spacecraft moving at a lower orbital velocity than the target celestial body is inserted into a similar orbit, allowing the planet or moon to move toward it and gravitationally snag it into orbit around the celestial body. [13]
From a circular orbit, thrust applied in a direction opposite to the satellite's motion changes the orbit to an elliptical one; the satellite will descend and reach the lowest orbital point (the periapse) at 180 degrees away from the firing point; then it will ascend back. The period of the resultant orbit will be less than that of the original ...
In astrodynamics or celestial mechanics, an elliptic orbit or elliptical orbit is a Kepler orbit with an eccentricity of less than 1; this includes the special case of a circular orbit, with eccentricity equal to 0. In a stricter sense, it is a Kepler orbit with the eccentricity greater than 0 and less than 1 (thus excluding the circular orbit).
The station remains in low-Earth orbit, meaning it is partly protected by Earth’s magnetic field, as well as heavy shielding incorporated into the orbiting laboratory’s design. Earth’s ...
An inclination of 90° is an edge-on orbit, meaning the plane of the exoplanet's orbit is parallel to the line of sight with Earth. Since the word "inclination" is used in exoplanet studies for this line-of-sight inclination, the angle between the planet's orbit and its star's rotational axis is expressed using the term the "spin-orbit angle ...