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This is true for the Solar System because all our planets have near-circular orbits. Suppose though if you had two planets with highly elliptical orbits and sim
by Asraelite 3y ago
This is true for the Solar System because all our planets have near-circular orbits. Suppose though if you had two planets with highly elliptical orbits and similar arguments of perigee. They will spend most of their time far away from their star but relatively close to one another.
I'm not sure if such an elliptical orbit would be possible while still classifying them as planets and not dwarf planets though.
- nickparker 3y agoIIRC we've found some big exoplanets in wild orbits. They tend to form in a circular-ish orbit because that's how you get a big enough chunk of the dense bits of an accretion disk, but interactions with other planets/stars can put eg gas giants into wild orbits after formation. EG https://astronomynow.com/2019/08/28/exoplanet-found-in-unusually-long-elliptical-orbit/ https://astronomynow.com/2019/08/28/exoplanet-found-in-unusu...
- CaptainNegative 3y agoOutside of binary planets orbiting each other, is this achievable as a (mostly) stable configuration? Intuitively, if the two planets have orbiting periods that are not basically identical, then after long enough they will also have long stretches of time where they are on opposite sides of the star (with a slight caveat if the periods are rational multiples of each other, but in either case their positions will be asymptotically uncorrelated). On the other hand, if they are close and have the same period, I'd expect their gravitational pulls would eventually merge them together unless they become a binary planet system. But I have no physics/astrophysics background so this could easily all be stupid.