Questions tagged [hill-sphere]
Questions about the region around an astronomical body where its gravitational field dominates that of satellite bodies.
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Would a planet's tidal forces really push away a moon out of its Hill Sphere?
If a moon orbits in the same direction as its planet's rotation (i.e. a prograde orbit), and its orbital period is longer than its planet's rotational period, then tidal forces would cause the moon to ...
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Was Theia a planet or an asteroid?
According to an article Theia (from the Giant impact hypothesis) was an asteroid and according to The Wikipedia article about Theia Theia was an Earth trojan (which is an asteroid). Which is dubious, ...
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Relationship between Roche limit and Hill sphere?
The Roche limit is defined as the minimal orbital distance within which a gravity-bound satellite will remain together rather than being disrupted by tidal forces. If I understand correctly, this is ...
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Are intersecting orbits ever stable?
Ok, I'm asking this question because the obvious counterexample is trojans. Trojans typically intersect the orbit of its relative body. Typically, these are stable in the long-term, especially when ...
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What's the largest object crossing Ceres' hill sphere?
What's the largest and/or most massive main belt object whose Ceres MOID is within Ceres' hill sphere radius (within ~0.0015 a.u. (140,000 mi) (224,000 km))? Three-dimensionally, of course.
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Is a Procyon - brown dwarf - Jupiter - superearth - Mars - Pluto system theoretically possible? [closed]
I once conducted a thought experiment and with some amateurish calculations based around Hill sphere and Roche limit came up with semi-major axis distances like this:
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Are Sun-Earth L1 & L2 points generally considered outside the Earth's Hill Sphere?
This image from Wikipedia of the SE Lagrange points and the Hill Spheres suggests that the SEL points are outside the Earth's Hill Sphere. (The Hill spheres are the circular regions surrounding the ...
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Could a star have a Saturn-like ring?
Saturn's rings will never clump together, because they are within the Roche limit. Which makes me wonder if a star could have rings that are kept from clumping together due to tidal forces. Have any ...
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When could the Roche limit be larger than the Hill sphere?
This answer to Are Saturn's rings stable? begins with:
Most of Saturn's rings are inside it's Roche limit, which means they will never clump together. Tidal forces prevent this from happening.
I ...