Questions tagged [orbital-motion]
The path a body takes while moving through space under the influence of the gravitational forces of other bodies
357
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
15
votes
2
answers
512
views
Regularization: What is so special about the Coulomb/Newtonian and harmonic potential?
I wanted to know if the procedure for regularization of the Coulomb potential outlined in Celletti (2003): Basics of regularization theory could be generalized to arbitrary polynomial potentials. So ...
- 9,910
12
votes
2
answers
373
views
What's the cause of this gap in this simulation of the Nice model?
A previous question brought me to this video (which has a spectacular change at about 0:34). It shows the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and what appear to be trans-Neptunian objects.
...
- 10.8k
7
votes
1
answer
491
views
How did Kepler arrive at his laws?
How did Kepler arrive at his laws? If one already knows the distances to the planets (and the eccentricity of the orbits, etc.), it is understandable that one might proceed to establish Kepler's ...
- 215
6
votes
0
answers
113
views
are alignment of star systems' orbital planes with ours better than random?
It obviously helps our observation of exoplanets if they transit their star from our point-of-view. I would guess that the chances of this alignment are better than if their orbital plane was randomly ...
- 161
5
votes
0
answers
111
views
Fully General Relativistic treatment of Galaxy Rotation Curve
Over the years I have seen several approaches to this problem in the GR context: perturbations around a flat-spacetime, cancelation by hand of $\mathcal{O}(\partial_{\mu}\textbf{g}^{2})$ terms on the ...
5
votes
3
answers
533
views
Examples of central forces on the path of orbit?
In solving a problem from Goldstein (3.13), I solved for multiple properties of a circular orbit with the attractive central force where the path of orbit crosses the point of the force (at origin).
...
- 197
5
votes
1
answer
553
views
Why does planetary spin affect the stability of orbits?
Reading about the Hill Sphere I notice that "the region of stability for retrograde orbits at a large distance from the primary, is larger than the region for prograde orbits at a large distance from ...
- 5,148
4
votes
0
answers
161
views
Confusion about Post-Newtonian orbital motion (Damour-Deruelle)
In their famous paper in 1985 (link), Damour&Deruelle describe the orbital motion for a binary system taking into account first-order post-Newtonian corrections (1PN). The solution is given in ...
- 169
4
votes
1
answer
147
views
Book recommendation for classical Newtonian gravity
I’m looking for a good textbook that covers Newtonian Gravity in detail (preferably advanced undergrad/grad level). One that covers important things like
Calculating trajectories of satellites around ...
4
votes
0
answers
328
views
Is the white sky of Stephanson's novel "SevenEves" plausible?
Based on comments, would the moderators please move this to Astronomy.SE?
In the novel, some agency disrupts the moon. The moon is left in 7 major chunks that are still gravitationally bound. (...
4
votes
0
answers
230
views
Closed trajectories for Kepler problem with classical spin-orbit corrections?
Kepler problem explains closed elliptic trajectories for planetary systems or in Bohr's classical atomic model - let say two approximately point objects, the central one has practically fixed position,...
- 960
4
votes
0
answers
334
views
From Newton to Kepler without infinitesimals
I've read some interesting calculus-free proofs of at least parts of the derivation of Kepler's Laws from Newton's gravitational force.
One is of course Feyman's "Lost Lecture" (which was already ...
- 131
4
votes
2
answers
783
views
Good sources to get velocity/position vectors for all planets and moons in the Solar System for building an orbital simulator?
I’m building an $N$-body simulator, and I have everything ready to begin simulating. But my issue is is that I have no idea how to get all the starting positions and velocities for the celestial ...
3
votes
0
answers
56
views
Approximation of Nearly Circular Orbit by a Precessing Ellipse
I am self-studying the 3rd edition of Goldstein's Classical Mechanics and have hit a roadblock when working a problem (Chapter 3, Problem 20). The problem asks us to consider a planet of mass $m$ ...
- 373
3
votes
3
answers
183
views
Why do the planets tend to spin in the same direction as they orbit the center sun?
I mean, why do the spin angular momentum and the orbit angular momentum of a planet tend to have the same direction?
As we all know, a planetesimal $m$ orbiting a sun with mass $M_{sun}$ at $r$ will ...
- 309