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Questions tagged [celestial-mechanics]

Questions regarding the motions of celestial objects.

Celestial mechanics is a field regarding the motion and trajectory of certain objects in space. This field includes many sub-fields such as the launching and orbits artificial satellites, and lunar theory. Celestial mechanics currently consists of five main fields:

  • Orbital mechanics.

  • Planetary dynamics.

  • Astrodynamics and stellar dynamics.

  • Stellar dynamics and galactic dynamics.

  • Computational astrophysics.

All of the above fields obviously overlap, but mostly are treated as separate, especially the study of the motion of stars within galaxies and interactions between whole galaxies, which both tend to rely heavily on fluid mechanics.

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clarification of the Kozai mechanism

As Wikipedia says, In celestial mechanics, the Kozai mechanism, or the Lidov–Kozai mechanism, is a perturbation of the orbit of a satellite by the gravity of another body orbiting farther out, causing libration (oscillation about a constant value)…
questionhang
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How to calculate the altitude of a star given the hour angle, declination, and latitude?

I'm trying to find the altitude of a star for observing, but all I have is the hour angle and declination of the star, along with latitude of the location I'm observing from. How can I find the altitude?
altitudeFinder
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Strange asymptotic behavior on the Kozai-Lidov cycles

So, in Naoz et al. (2013) is described the Kozai mechanism on three-body systems. I've tried to solve the equations (B1) - (B17) for the example described in the Figure 3 and I got something like this: Note that I got the exact same result until…
Carlos Vázquez Monzón
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Hohmann transfer orbit (Earth-Jupiter system)

Consider the Hohmann transfer orbit of a probe launched from Earth to Jupiter. Assume the orbits of Earth and Jupiter are circular. I want to calculate the following: The semi-major axis and eccentricity of Hohmann transfer orbit from Earth to…
RUNN
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In a binary star system, what relation determines the eccentricity of the three orbits (for $m_1$, $m_2$, and the reduced mass)?

In a binary star system, why does $$e_1 = e_2 = e$$ where $e_1$,$e_2$, and $e$ are the eccentricities of the three orbits of $m_1$,$m_2$, and the reduced mass, respectively.
Mohamed Ayman
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