Aucbvax.6107
fa.space
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!space
Sun Feb  7 03:19:55 1982
SPACE Digest V2 #100
>From OTA@S1-A Sun Feb  7 03:01:07 1982

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 2 : Issue 100

Today's Topics:
			     Horseshoe Orbits
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Date:  6 February 1982 19:30 est
From:  Tavares.WFSO at MIT-Multics
Subject:  Horseshoe Orbits
To:  Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC
In-Reply-To:  Message of 6 February 1982 06:02 est from Ted Anderson

All you space whizzes, don't get on me, I know I'm ignorant.  But this
is the second time I've heard horseshoe orbits explained in this
fashion.  What puzzles me is the explanation that "the lower one is
attracted by the higher one ahead of it, making it go faster and
therefore into a higher orbit."  As was mentioned several times during
the Skylab "re-entry," higher orbits are SLOWER, not faster.  If the
moon thus accelareted doesn't immediately fly into space, it must have
to do with some interaction whereby the other moon, now lower (and
slower) pulls it back.  This sounds weird.  It would be more likely that
the moons are really orbiting each other, and the "horseshoe" effect is
an optical illusion-- a cycloid-like figure, perhaps, traced out solely
because both these moons are orbiting something larger in the meanwhile.
Is this what is actually happening?

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End of SPACE Digest
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