How Orbits Work

Emma writes some great science posts, this one on orbits is really good though and I had to reblog it.

I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did.

Simon 🙂

Cosmos at Your Doorstep

Since Aristotle’s time over 2000 years ago, we have accepted that the moon orbits the Earth. We didn’t always know why, and we didn’t always accept this for the right reasons.

We used to assume that it happened just because we saw the moon move across the sky, and we believed the Earth to be the center of all motion in the solar system. But even when we realized—in the 1540s CE—that the sun was in fact the center of the solar system, the moon kept its place around the Earth.

And rightfully so. Astronomers now know that the moon orbits the Earth based on scientific observation, rather than the “logical” guesses of Aristotle’s time. And we even know why it orbits—gravity, the one force in all the universe we can’t escape.

But I can tell you, the moon’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle, and if gravity were…

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