All Questions
Tagged with celestial-mechanics planets
70
questions
33
votes
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answers
7k
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Is there a maximum distance from a planet that a moon can orbit?
Given a planet that orbits a star, and a moon that orbits that planet, is it possible to define a maximum orbital radius of that moon, beyond which the moon would no longer orbit the planet, but the ...
- 432
29
votes
6
answers
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Why are the orbits of planets in the Solar System nearly circular?
Except for Mercury, the planets in the Solar System have very small eccentricities.
Is this property special to the Solar System? Wikipedia states:
Most exoplanets with orbital periods of 20 days ...
- 53.2k
17
votes
2
answers
952
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Was Leverrier-Adams prediction of Neptune a lucky coincidence?
According to historians both Adams and Leverrier used Bode's law to guess the distance to Neptune, which led to a vast overestimation of its orbital period (Adams - 227 years, Le Verrier - 218 years, ...
- 5,373
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6
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If another planet was opposite Earth, would we be able to observe it?
Imagine another Earth-sized planet, in the exact same orbit as Earth, but 180 degrees out-of-phase. In this arrangement, at all times, you would be able to draw a single straight line through space ...
- 461
15
votes
3
answers
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Simulating solar system with Newton's law
I made a simulation in C++ with Newtons law and test it comparing the planets positions with the position from Solar system Calculator Don Cross (which I converted from JavaScript to C++)
http://...
- 327
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6
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What's the actual path of the planets?
I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'...
- 1,233
10
votes
4
answers
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Collision of Phobos
Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos. Both are irregular and are believed to have been captured from the nearby asteroid belt.
Phobos always shows the same face to Mars because of tidal forces ...
- 1,516
9
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4
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Binary Star system with one star stationary?
Can a Binary Star system be possible where in one star is stationary and the other star revolves around it? (Just like a planet revolving a star. i.e planets in the system and the star revolving ...
- 265
9
votes
1
answer
680
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Will Neptune change Pluto's orbit some day?
My seven-year-old son loves astronomy-- so much so that we read space books before bed time. One of our books talks about Pluto's orbit crossing over Neptune's orbit and will be (or is) closer to the ...
- 550
9
votes
2
answers
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Does a tidally locked planet have seasons?
Could a tidally locked planet have seasons?
According to my understanding, a tidally locked planet rotates around itself exactly once per rotation around its sun. However, if the axis of rotation of ...
- 1,125
7
votes
3
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Falling through the rotating Earth
Suppose you were standing on the rotating Earth (not necessarily Equator or the poles) and suddenly your body lost the ability to avoid effortlessly passing through solid rock.
Because the earth's ...
- 81
6
votes
7
answers
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Why is the universe so organized?
If you think about the Big Bang and the flow of matter in all directions, you would think, how unorganized would this universe be? No matter how long it would take. The idea that matter or most of it ...
- 347
6
votes
3
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Rocky Planet in the center of System [duplicate]
We all know that mostly stars are at the center of planetary systems, but is it possible that instead of a star there was a rocky planet in the center with stars (and other planets and moons) orbiting ...
user45974
4
votes
4
answers
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Is it possible for the planets to align?
We've all heard the statement that on the 21st of December, the planets in the solar system will "align" from the point of view of the Earth. I assume this means that they would all be in the same ...
- 28.3k
4
votes
1
answer
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Shape of planetary orbits
What makes Venus' orbit almost circular, though mercury's is highly elliptical,even though it is closer to sun ? Further, Why is mercury's orbit most elliptical right after Pluto ?
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