• Question: what is an elliptical orbit?

    Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ian Stephenson

      Ian Stephenson answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      An ellipse has two focal points and the distance from one focal point to the edge of the ellipse, and back to the other focal point is a constant. A circle is a special type of ellipse where the two focal points are in the same place!

      a guy called Keplar did the maths and figured out that planets orbits are actually ellipses, though they are quite close to being circular.

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