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Hubble captures dense globular cluster NGC 1841

This densely populated group of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1841, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy that lies about 162,000 light-years away. Satellite galaxies ...

SpaceX eyes March 14 for next Starship test launch

Elon Musk's SpaceX on Wednesday announced it was eyeing March 14 as the earliest date for the next test launch of its giant Starship rocket, with which it hopes to one day colonize Mars.

Warm Jupiter exoplanet orbiting distant star detected

Astronomers report the discovery of a new warm Jupiter exoplanet orbiting a distant star in the open cluster Messier 67. The newfound extrasolar world, designated S1429 b, is almost twice as massive as Jupiter. The finding ...

Could tardigrades have colonized the moon?

Just over five years ago, on 22 February 2019, an unmanned space probe was placed in orbit around the moon. Named Beresheet and built by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, it was intended to be the first private spacecraft ...

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Orbit

In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of one object around a point or another body, for example the gravitational orbit of a planet around a star.

Historically, the apparent motion of the planets were first understood in terms of epicycles, which are the sums of numerous circular motions. This predicted the path of the planets quite well, until Johannes Kepler was able to show that the motion of the planets were in fact elliptical motions.[citation needed] Isaac Newton was able to prove that this was equivalent to an inverse square, instantaneously propagating force he called gravitation.[citation needed] Albert Einstein later was able to show that gravity is due to curvature of space-time, and that orbits lie upon geodesics. This is the current understanding.

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