planetary orbits
Paths around stars
Planetary orbits are the curved paths that planets follow as they travel around a star.
In our solar system, all eight planets orbit the Sun in roughly the same plane, moving in elliptical rather than perfectly circular paths.
The term extends to moons orbiting planets and to exoplanets circling distant stars: Kepler discovered thousands of planetary orbits beyond our solar system.
- gravityMutual mass attraction
- aphelionFarthest point from sun
- retrograde motionApparent reverse orbital path
- ellipseConic section curve
- epicyclesOrbits within orbits
heavenly spheres · Hohmann transfer · inclination · eccentricity · apsidal precession · inertia · perturbation · three body problem · Tycho Brahe · Newtonian mechanics · resonance · angular momentum · telescope · satellites · star · Neptune · centripetal force · solar system
- outer spacesun, moon, star system, solar system, comet
- solar systemsun, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn
- astronomy topicssolar eclipses, lunar phases, Mars exploration, Saturn rings, dwarf planets
- gravitygravity, graviton, gravity well, gravitational pull, gravity wave
- astronomystars, moon, sun, planets, star
- Astronomy HistoryCopernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Ptolemy