Or: why are orbits stable?
For every orbital height, there's a linear speed you need to move at to keep yourself in that orbit. Any faster, and you fly off into space. Any slower, and you crash.
Question is: how can this be stable? Surely going even a tiny bit too fast or too slow will result in flying or falling out of your orbit? So any slight perturbation (crashing into a bit of space junk, whatever) should knock you out of orbit.
Furthermore, the moon, and all other satellites, have been losing energy for as long as they've been up there, by dragging the oceans over the surface of the earth in the form of tides. So they must be slowing down, and ought to crash.
Same applies to the earth around the sun, the sun around the galactic centre, etc.
Why is this process stable?
2007-01-19
22:52:09
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10 answers
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asked by
wild_eep
6
in
Astronomy & Space