4 ms·
no, what I'm talking about is more like a perfectly circular orbit around the sun, where the direction of the acceleration is always exactly perpendicular to th
by ouid 8y ago
no, what I'm talking about is more like a perfectly circular orbit around the sun, where the direction of the acceleration is always exactly perpendicular to the motion.
- soulofmischief 8y agoBut there is no perfectly circular orbit around the sun. The mass of the two bodies causes the center of mass to be slightly off center from the sun, and both the sun and earth orbit around this center of mass in a fashion that AFAIK loses energy.
- garmaine 8y agoIf the two objects were either perfect spheres or tidally locked, then a circular orbit would continue forever. There are no losses due to pure motion in a vacuum.
- Arbalest 8y agoI thought the theme of my reply is that we're not talking about theoretical constructs, but instead reality... Space is not a vacuum, just much lower pressure than on earth.